On the day following Nino's _début_, Maestro Ercole de Pretis found
himself in hot water, and the choristers at St. Peter's noticed that
his skull-cap was awry, and that he sang out of tune; and once he
tried to take a pinch of snuff when there was only three bars' rest in
the music, so that instead of singing C sharp he sneezed very loud.
Then all the other singers giggled, and said, "Salute!"--which we
always say to a person who sneezes--quite audibly.
It was not that Ercole had heard anything from the Graf von Lira as
yet; but he expected to hear, and did not relish the prospect. Indeed,
how could the Prussian gentleman fail to resent what the maestro had
done in introducing to him a singer disguised as a teacher? It
chanced, also, that the contessina took a singing lesson that very day
in the afternoon, and it was clear that the reaping of his evil deeds
was not far off. His conscience did not trouble him at all, it is
true, for I have told you that he has liberal ideas about the right
of marriage; but his vanity was sorely afflicted at the idea of
abandoning such a very noble and creditable pupil as the Contessina di
Lira. He applauded himself for furthering Nino's wild schemes, and he
blamed himself for being so reckless about his own interests. Every
moment he expected a formal notice from the count to discontinue the
lessons. But still it did not come, and at the appointed hour Ercole's
wife helped him to put on his thick winter coat, and wrapped his
comforter about his neck, and pulled his big hat over his eyes--for
the weather was threatening, and sent him trudging off to the Palazzo
Carmandola.
Though Ercole is stout of heart, and has broad shoulders to bear such
burdens as fall to his lot, he lingered long on the way, for his
presentiments were gloomy; and at the great door of the Palazzo he
even stopped to inquire of the porter whether the contessina had been
seen to go out yet, half hoping that she would thus save him the
mortification of an interview. But it turned out otherwise: the
contessina was at home, and De Pretis was expected, as usual, to give
the lesson. Slowly he climbed the great staircase, and was admitted.
"Good-day, Sor Maestro," said the liveried footman, who knew him well.
"The Signor Conte desires to speak with you to-day before you go to
the signorina."
The maestro's heart sank, and he gripped hard the roll of music in his
hand as he followed the servant to the count's cabinet. There was to
be a scene of explanation after all.
The count was seated in his great arm-chair, in a cloud of tobacco
smoke, reading a Prussian military journal. His stick leaned against
the table by his side, in painful contrast with the glittering cavalry
sabres crossed upon the dark red wall opposite. The tall windows
looked out on the piazza, and it was raining, or just beginning to
rain. The great inkstand on the table was made to represent a
howitzer, and the count looked as though he were ready to fire it
point blank at any intruder. There was an air of disciplined luxury in
the room that spoke of a rich old soldier who fed his fancy with
tit-bits from a stirring past. De Pretis felt very uncomfortable, but
the nobleman rose to greet him, as he rose to greet everything above
the rank of a servant, making himself steady with his stick. When De
Pretis was seated he sat down also. The rain pattered against the
window.
"Signor De Pretis," began the count, in tones as hard as chilled
steel, "you are an honourable man." There was something interrogative
in his voice.
"I hope so," answered the maestro modestly; "like other Christians, I
have a soul--"
"You will your soul take care of in your leisure moments," interrupted
the count. "At present you have no leisure."
"As you command, Signor Conte."
"I was yesterday evening at the theatre. The professor you recommended
for my daughter is with the new tenor one person." De Pretis spread
out his hands and bowed, as if to deprecate any share in the
transaction. The count continued, "You are of the profession, Signor
De Pretis. Evidently, you of this were aware."
"It is true," assented Ercole, not knowing what to say.
"Of course it is true. I am therefore to hear your explanation
disposed." His grey eyes fastened sternly on the maestro. But the
latter was prepared, for he had long foreseen that the count would one
day be disposed to hear an explanation, as he expressed it.
"It is quite true," repeated De Pretis. "The young man was very poor,
and desired to support himself while he was studying music. He was
well fitted to teach our literature, and I recommended him. I hope
that, in consideration of his poverty, and because he turned out a
very good teacher, you will forgive me, Signor Conte."
"This talented singer I greatly applaud," answered the count stiffly.
"As a with-the-capacity-and-learning-requisite-for-teaching-endowed
young man deserves he also some commendation. Also will I remember
his laudable-and-not-lacking independence character. Nevertheless,
unfitting would it be should I pay the first tenor of the opera five
francs an hour to teach my daughter Italian literature." De Pretis
breathed more freely.
"Then you will forgive me, Signor Conte, for endeavouring to promote
the efforts of this worthy young man in supporting himself?"
"Signor De Pretis," said the count, with a certain quaint geniality,
"I have my precautions observed. I examined Signor Cardegna in Italian
literature in my own person, and him proficient found. Had I found him
to be ignorant, and had I his talents as an operatic singer later
discovered, I would you out of that window have projected." De Pretis
was alarmed, for the old count looked as though he would have carried
out the threat. "As it is," he concluded, "you are an honourable man,
and I wish you good-morning. Lady Hedwig awaits you as usual." He rose
courteously, leaning on his stick, and De Pretis bowed himself out.
He expected that the contessina would immediately begin talking of
Nino, but he was mistaken; she never once referred to the opera or the
singer, and except that she looked pale and transparent, and sang with
a trifle less interest in her music than usual, there was nothing
noticeable in her manner. Indeed, she had every reason to be silent.
Early that morning Nino received by messenger a pretty little note,
written in execrable Italian, begging him to come and breakfast with
the baroness at twelve, as she much desired to speak with him after
his stupendous triumph of the previous night.
Nino is a very good boy, but he is mortal, and after the excitement of
the evening he thought nothing could be pleasanter than to spend a few
hours in that scented boudoir, among the palms and the beautiful
objects and the perfumes, talking with a woman who professed herself
ready to help him in his love affair. We have no perfumes or cushions
or pretty things at number twenty-seven Santa Catarina dei Funari,
though everything is very bright and neat and most proper, and the cat
is kept in the kitchen, for the most part. So it is no wonder that he
should have preferred to spend the morning with the baroness.
She was half lying, half sitting, in a deep arm-chair, when Nino
entered; and she was reading a book. When she saw him she dropped the
volume on her knee, and looked up at him from under her lids, without
speaking. She must have been a bewitching figure. Nino advanced toward
her, bowing low, so that his dark curling hair shaded his face.
"Good-day, signora," said he softly, as though fearing to hurt the
quiet air. "I trust I do not interrupt you?"
"You never interrupt me, Nino," she said, "except--except when you go
away."
"You are very good, signora."
"For heaven's sake, no pretty speeches," said she, with a little
laugh.
"It seems to me," said Nino, seating himself, "that it was you who
made the pretty speech, and I who thanked you for it." There was a
pause.
"How do you feel!" asked the baroness at last, turning her head to
him.
"Grazie--I am well," he answered, smiling.
"Oh, I do not mean that,--you are always well. But how do you enjoy
your first triumph?"
"I think," said Nino, "that a real artist ought to have the capacity
to enjoy a success at the moment, and the good sense to blame his
vanity for enjoying it after it is passed."
"How old are you, Nino?"
"Did I never tell you?" he asked innocently. "I shall be twenty-one
soon."
"You talk as though you were forty, at least."
"Heaven save us!" quoth Nino.
"But really, are you not immensely flattered at the reception you
had?"
"Yes."
"You did not look at all interested in the public at the time," said
she, "and that Roman nose of yours very nearly turned up in disdain of
the applause, I thought. I wonder what you were thinking of all the
while."
"Can you wonder, baronessa?" She knew what he meant, and there was a
little look of annoyance in her face when she answered.
"Ah, well, of course not, since _she_ was there." Her ladyship rose,
and taking a stick of Eastern pastil from a majolica dish in a corner
made Nino light it from a wax taper.
"I want the smell of the sandal-wood this morning," said she; "I have
a headache." She was enchanting to look at as she bent her
softly-shaded face over the flame to watch the burning perfume. She
looked like a beautiful lithe sorceress making a love spell,--perhaps
for her own use. Nino turned from her. He did not like to allow the
one image he loved to be even for a moment disturbed by the one he
loved not, however beautiful. She moved away, leaving the pastil on
the dish. Suddenly she paused, and turned back to look at him.
"Why did you come to-day?" she asked.
"Because you desired it," answered Nino, in some astonishment.
"You need not have come," she said, bending down to lean on the back
of a silken chair. She folded her hands and looked at him as he stood
not three paces away. "Do you not know what has happened?" she asked,
with a smile that was a little sad.
"I do not understand," said Nino simply. He was facing the entrance to
the room, and saw the curtains parted by the servant. The baroness had
her back to the door, and did not hear.
"Do you not know," she continued, "that you are free now? Your
appearance in public has put an end to it all. You are not tied to me
any longer,--unless you wish it."
As she spoke these words Nino turned white, for under the heavy
curtain, lifted to admit her, stood Hedwig von Lira, like a statue,
transfixed and immovable from what she had heard. The baroness noticed
Nino's look, and springing back to her height from the chair on which
she had been leaning, faced the door.
"My dearest Hedwig!" she cried, with a magnificent readiness. "I am so
very glad you have come. I did not expect you in the least. Do take
off your hat, and stay to breakfast. Ah, forgive me; this is Professor
Cardegna. But you know him? Yes; now that I think, we all went to the
Pantheon together." Nino bowed low, and Hedwig bent her head.
"Yes," said the young girl coldly. "Professor Cardegna gives me
lessons."
"Why, of course; how _bête_ I am! I was just telling him that, since
he has been successful, and is enrolled among the great artists, it is
a pity he is no longer tied to giving Italian lessons,--tied to coming
here three times a week to teach me literature." Hedwig smiled a
strange icy smile, and sat down by the window. Nino was still utterly
astonished, but he would not allow the baroness's quibble to go
entirely uncontradicted.
"In truth," he said, "the Signora Baronessa's lessons consisted
chiefly--"
"In teaching me pronunciation," interrupted the baroness, trying to
remove Hedwig's veil and hat, somewhat against the girl's inclination.
"Yes, you see how it is. I know a little of singing, but I cannot
pronounce--not in the least. Ah, these Italian vowels will be the
death of me! But if there is anyone who can teach a poor dilettante to
pronounce them," she added, laying the hat away on a chair, and
pushing a footstool to Hedwig's feet, "that someone is Signor
Cardegna."
By this time Nino had recognised the propriety of temporising; that is
to say, of letting the baroness's fib pass for what it was worth, lest
the discussion of the subject should further offend Hedwig, whose eyes
wandered irresolutely toward him, as though she would say something if
he addressed her.
"I hope, signorina," he said, "that it is not quite as the baroness
says. I trust our lessons are not at an end?" He knew very well that
they were.
"I think, Signor Cardegna," said Hedwig, with more courage than would
have been expected from such a mere child,--she is twenty, but
Northern people are not grown up till they are thirty, at least,--"I
think it would have been more obliging if, when I asked you so much
about your cousin, you had acknowledged that you had no cousin, and
that the singer was none other than yourself." She blushed, perhaps,
but the curtain of the window hid it.
"Alas, signorina," answered Nino, still standing before her, "such a
confession would have deprived me of the pleasure--of the honour of
giving you lessons."
"And pray, Signor Cardegna," put in the baroness, "what are a few
paltry lessons compared with the pleasure you ought to have
experienced in satisfying the Contessina di Lira's curiosity. Really,
you have little courtesy."
Nino shrank into himself, as though he were hurt, and he gave the
baroness a look which said worlds. She smiled at him, in joy of her
small triumph, for Hedwig was looking at the floor again and could not
see. But the young girl had strength in her, for all her cold looks
and white cheek.
"You can atone, Signor Cardegna," she said. Nino's face brightened.
"How, signorina?" he asked.
"By singing to us now," said Hedwig. The baroness looked grave, for
she well knew what a power Nino wielded with his music.
"Do not ask him," she protested. "He must be tired,--tired to death,
with all he went through last night."
"Tired?" ejaculated Nino, with some surprise. "I tired? I was never
tired in my life of singing. I will sing as long as you will listen."
He went to the piano. As he turned, the baroness laid her hand on
Hedwig's affectionately, as though sympathising with something she
supposed to be passing in the girl's mind. But Hedwig was passive,
unless a little shudder at the first touch of the baroness's fingers
might pass for a manifestation of feeling. Hedwig had hitherto liked
the baroness, finding in her a woman of a certain artistic sense,
combined with a certain originality. The girl was an absolute contrast
to the woman, and admired in her the qualities she thought lacking in
herself, though she possessed too much self-respect to attempt to
acquire them by imitation. Hedwig sat like a Scandinavian fairy
princess on the summit of a glass hill; her friend roamed through life
like a beautiful soft-footed wild animal, rejoicing in the sense of
being, and sometimes indulging in a little playful destruction by the
way. The girl had heard a voice in the dark singing, and ever since
then she had dreamed of the singer; but it never entered her mind to
confide to the baroness her strange fancies. An undisciplined
imagination, securely shielded from all outward disturbing causes,
will do much with a voice in the dark,--a great deal more than such a
woman as the baroness might imagine.
I do not know enough about these blue-eyed German girls to say whether
or not Hedwig had ever before thought of her unknown singer as an
unknown lover. But the emotions of the previous night had shaken her
nerves a little, and had she been older than she was she would have
known that she loved her singer, in a distant and maidenly fashion, as
soon as she heard the baroness speak of him as having been her
property. And now she was angry with herself, and ashamed of feeling
any interest in a man who was evidently tied to another woman by some
intrigue she could not comprehend. Her coming to visit the baroness
had been as unpremeditated as it was unexpected that morning, and she
bitterly repented it; but being of good blood and heart, she acted as
boldly as she could, and showed no little tact in making Nino sing,
and thus cutting short a painful conversation. Only when the baroness
tried to caress her and stroke her hand she shrank away, and the blood
mantled up to her cheeks. Add to all this the womanly indignation she
felt at having been so long deceived by Nino, and you will see that
she was in a very vacillating frame of mind.
The baroness was a subtle woman, reckless and diplomatic by turns, and
she was not blind to the sudden repulse she met with from Hedwig,
unspoken though it was. But she merely withdrew her hand, and sat
thinking over the situation. What she thought, no one knows; or at
least, we can only guess it from what she did afterwards. As for me, I
have never blamed her at all, for she is the kind of woman I should
have loved. In the meantime Nino carolled out one love song after
another. He saw, however, that the situation was untenable, and after
a while he rose to go. Strange to say, although the baroness had asked
Nino to breakfast and the hour was now at hand, she made no effort to
retain him. But she gave him her hand, and said many flattering and
pleasing things, which, however, neither flattered nor pleased him. As
for Hedwig, she bent her head a little, but said nothing, as he bowed
before her. Nino therefore went home with a heavy heart, longing to
explain to Hedwig why he had been tied to the baroness,--that it was
the price of her silence and of the privilege he had enjoyed of giving
lessons to the contessina; but knowing also that all explanation was
out of the question for the present. When he was gone Hedwig and the
baroness were left together.
"It must have been a great surprise to you, my dear," said the elder
lady kindly.
"What?"
"That your little professor should turn out a great artist in
disguise. It was a surprise to me, too,--ah, another illusion
destroyed. Dear child! You have still so many illusions,--beautiful,
pure illusions. Dieu! how I envy you!" They generally talked French
together, though the baroness knows German. Hedwig laughed bravely.
"I was certainly astonished," she said. "Poor man! I suppose he did it
to support himself. He never told me he gave you lessons too." The
baroness smiled, but it was from genuine satisfaction this time.
"I wonder at that, since he knew we were intimate, or, at least, that
we were acquainted. Of course I would not speak of it last night,
because I saw your father was angry."
"Yes, he was angry. I suppose it was natural," said Hedwig.
"Perfectly natural. And you, my dear, were you not angry too,--just a
little?"
"I? No. Why should I be angry? He was a very good teacher, for he
knows whole volumes by heart; and he understands them too."
Soon they talked of other things, and the baroness was very
affectionate. But though Hedwig saw that her friend was kind and most
friendly, she could not forget the words that were in the air when she
chanced to enter, nor could she quite accept the plausible explanation
of them which the baroness had so readily invented. For jealousy is
the forerunner of love, and sometimes its awakener. She felt a rival
and an enemy, and all the hereditary combativeness of her Northern
blood was roused.
Nino, who was in no small perplexity, reflected. He was not old enough
or observant enough to have seen the breach that was about to be
created between the baroness and Hedwig. His only thought was to clear
himself in Hedwig's eyes from the imputation of having been tied to
the dark woman in any way save for his love's sake. He at once began
to hate the baroness with all the ferocity of which his heart was
capable, and with all the calm his bold square face outwardly
expressed. But he was forced to take some action at once, and he could
think of nothing better to do than to consult De Pretis.
To the maestro he poured out his woes and his plans. He exhibited to
him his position toward the baroness and toward Hedwig in the clearest
light. He conjured him to go to Hedwig and explain that the baroness
had threatened to unmask him, and thus deprive him of his means of
support,--he dared not put it otherwise,--unless he consented to sing
for her and come to her as often as she pleased. To explain, to
propitiate, to smooth,--in a word, to reinstate Nino in her good
opinion.
"Death of a dog!" exclaimed De Pretis; "you do not ask much! After you
have allowed your lady-love, your inamorata, to catch you saying you
are bound body and soul to another woman,--and such a woman! ye
saints, what a beauty!--you ask me to go and set matters right! What
the diavolo did you want to go and poke your nose into such a
mousetrap for? Via! I am a fool to have helped you at all."
"Very likely," said Nino calmly. "But meanwhile there are two of us,
and perhaps I am the greater. You will do what I ask, maestro; is it
not true? And it was not I who said it; it was the baroness."
"The baroness--yes--and may the maledictions of the inferno overtake
her," said De Pretis, casting up his eyes and feeling in his coat-tail
pockets for his snuff-box. Once, when Nino was younger, he filled
Ercole's snuff-box with soot and pepper, so that the maestro had a
black nose and sneezed all day.
What could Ercole do? It was true that he had hitherto helped Nino.
Was he not bound to continue that assistance? I suppose so; but if the
whole affair had ended then, and this story with it, I would not have
cared a button. Do you suppose it amuses me to tell you this tale? Or
that if it were not for Nino's good name I would ever have turned
myself into a common storyteller? Bah! you do not know me. A page of
quaternions gives me more pleasure than all this rubbish put together,
though I am not averse to a little gossip now and then of an evening,
if people will listen to my details and fancies. But those are just
the things people will not listen to. Everybody wants sensation
nowadays. What is a sensation compared with a thought? What is the
convulsive gesticulation of a dead frog's leg compared with the
intellect of the man who invented the galvanic battery, and thus gave
fictitious sensation to all the countless generations of dead frogs'
legs that have since been the objects of experiment? Or if you come
down to so poor a thing as mere feeling, what are your feelings in
reading about Nino's deeds compared with what he felt in doing them? I
am not taking all this trouble to please you, but only for Nino's
sake, who is my dear boy. You are of no more interest or importance to
me than if you were so many dead frogs; and if I galvanise your
sensations, as you call them, into an activity sufficient to make you
cry or laugh, that is my own affair. You need not say "thank you" to
me. I do not want it. Ercole will thank you, and perhaps Nino will
thank me, but that is different.
I will not tell you about the interview that Ercole had with Hedwig,
nor how skilfully he rolled up his eyes and looked pathetic when he
spoke of Nino's poverty and of the fine part he had played in the
whole business. Hedwig is a woman, and the principal satisfaction she
gathered from Ercole's explanation was the knowledge that her friend
the baroness had lied to her in explaining those strange words she had
overheard. She knew it, of course, by instinct; but it was a great
relief to be told the fact by someone else, as it always is, even when
one is not a woman.