Several days passed after the _début_ without giving Nino an
opportunity of speaking to Hedwig. He probably saw her, for he mingled
in the crowd of dandies in the Piazza Colonna of an afternoon, hoping
she would pass in her carriage and give him a look. Perhaps she did;
he said nothing about it, but looked calm when he was silent and
savage when he spoke, after the manner of passionate people. His face
aged and grew stern in those few days, so that he seemed to change on
a sudden from boy to man. But he went about his business, and sang at
the theatre when he was obliged to; gathering courage to do his best
and to display his powers from the constant success he had. The papers
were full of his praises, saying that he was absolutely without rival
from the very first night he sang, matchless and supreme from the
moment he first opened his mouth, and all that kind of nonsense. I
dare say he is now, but he could not have been really the greatest
singer living, so soon. However, he used to bring me the newspapers
that had notices of him, though he never appeared to care much for
them, nor did he ever keep them himself. He said he hankered for an
ideal which he would never attain, and I told him that if he was never
to attain it he had better abandon the pursuit of it at once. But he
represented to me that the ideal was confined to his imagination,
whereas the reality had a great financial importance, since he daily
received offers from foreign managers to sing for them, at large
advantage to himself, and was hesitating only in order to choose the
most convenient. This seemed sensible, and I was silent. Soon
afterwards he presented me with a box of cigars and a very pretty
amber mouthpiece. The cigars were real Havanas, such as I had not
smoked for years, and must have cost a great deal.
"You may not be aware, Sor Cornelio," he said one evening, as he mixed
the oil and vinegar with the salad, at supper, "that I am now a rich
man, or soon shall be. An agent from the London opera has offered me
twenty thousand francs for the season in London this spring."
"Twenty thousand francs!" I cried, in amazement. "You must be
dreaming, Nino. That is just about seven times what I earn in a year
with my professorship and my writing."
"No dreams, caro mio. I have the offer in my pocket." He apparently
cared no more about it than if he had twenty thousand roasted
chestnuts in his pocket.
"When do you leave us?" I asked, when I was somewhat recovered.
"I am not sure that I will go," he answered, sprinkling some pepper on
the lettuce.
"Not sure! Body of Diana, what a fool you are!"
"Perhaps," said he, and he passed me the dish. Just then Mariuccia
came in with a bottle of wine, and we said no more about it, for
Mariuccia is indiscreet.
Nino thought nothing about his riches, because he was racking his
brains for some good expedient whereby he might see the contessina and
speak with her. He had ascertained from De Pretis that the count was
not so angry as he had expected, and that Hedwig was quite satisfied
with the explanations of the maestro. The day after the foregoing
conversation he wrote a note to her, wherein he said that if the
Contessina de Lira would deign to be awake at midnight that evening
she would have a serenade from a voice she was said to admire. He had
Mariuccia carry the letter to the Palazzo Cormandola.
At half-past eleven, at least two hours after supper, Nino wrapped
himself in my old cloak and took the guitar under his arm. Rome is not
a very safe place for midnight pranks, and so I made him take a good
knife in his waistbelt; for he had confided to me where he was going.
I tried to dissuade him from the plan, saying he might catch cold; but
he laughed at me.
A serenade is an everyday affair, and in the street one voice sounds
about as well as another. He reached the palace, and his heart sank
when he saw Hedwig's window dark and gloomy. He did not know that she
was seated behind it in a deep chair, wrapped in white things, and
listening for him against the beatings of her heart. The large moon
seemed to be spiked on the sharp spire of the church that is near her
house, and the black shadows cut the white light as clean as with a
knife. Nino had tuned his guitar in the other street, and stood ready,
waiting for the clocks to strike. Presently they clanged out wildly,
as though they had been waked from their midnight sleep, and were
angry; one clock answering the other, and one convent bell following
another in the call to prayers. For two full minutes the whole air was
crazy with ringing, and then it was all still. Nino struck a single
chord. Hedwig almost thought he might hear her heart beating all the
way down the street.
"Ah, del mio dolce ardor bramato ogetto," he sang,--an old air in one
of Gluck's operas that our Italian musicians say was composed by
Alessandro Stradella, the poor murdered singer. It must be a very good
air, for it pleases me; and I am not easily pleased with music of any
kind. As for Hedwig, she pressed her ear to the glass of the window
that she might not lose any note. But she would not open nor give any
sign. Nino was not so easily discouraged, for he remembered that once
before she had opened her window for a few bars he had begun to sing.
He played a few chords, and breathed out the "Salve, dimora casta e
pura," from _Faust_, high and soft and clear. There is a point in that
song, near to the end, where the words say, "Reveal to me the maiden,"
and where the music goes away to the highest note that anyone can
possibly sing. It always appears quite easy for Nino, and he does not
squeak like a dying pig as all the other tenors do on that note. He
was looking up as he sang it, wondering whether it would have any
effect. Apparently Hedwig lost her head completely, for she gently
opened the casement and looked out at the moonlight opposite, over the
carved stone mullions of her window. The song ended, he hesitated
whether to go or to sing again. She was evidently looking towards him;
but he was in the light, for the moon had risen higher, and she, on
the other side of the street, was in the dark.
"Signorina!" he called softly. No answer. "Signorina!" he said again,
coming across the empty street and standing under the window, which
might have been thirty feet from the ground.
"Hush!" came a whisper from above.
"I thank you with all my soul for listening to me," he said, in a low
voice. "I am innocent of that of which you suspect me. I love you, ah,
I love you!" But at this she left the window very quickly. She did
not close it, however, and Nino stood long, straining his eyes for a
glimpse of the white face that had been there. He sighed, and,
striking a chord, sang out boldly the old air from the _Trovatore_,
"Ah, che la morte ognora è tarda nel venir." Every blind fiddler in
the streets plays it, though he would be sufficiently scared if death
came any the quicker for his fiddling. But old and worn as it is it
has a strain of passion in it, and Nino threw more fire and voice into
the ring of it than ever did famous old Boccardè, when he sang it at
the first performance of the opera, thirty and odd years ago. As he
played the chords after the first strophe, the voice from above
whispered again:
"Hush! for Heaven's sake!" Just that, and something fell at his feet,
with a soft little padded sound on the pavement. He stooped to pick it
up, and found a single rose; and at that instant the window closed
sharply. Therefore he kissed the rose and hid it, and presently he
strode down the street, finishing his song as he went, but only
humming it, for the joy had taken his voice away. I heard him let
himself in and go to bed, and he told me about it in the morning. That
is how I know.
Since the day after the _début_ Nino had not seen the baroness. He did
not speak of her, and I am sure he wished she were at the very bottom
of the Tiber. But on the morning after the serenade he received a note
from her, which was so full of protestations of friendship and so
delicately couched that he looked grave, and reflected that it was his
duty to be courteous, and to answer such a call as that. She begged
him earnestly to come at one o'clock; she was suffering from headache,
she said, and was very weak. Had Nino loved Hedwig a whit the less he
would not have gone. But he felt himself strong enough to face
anything and everything, and therefore he determined to go.
He found her, indeed, with the manner of a person who is ill, but not
with the appearance. She was lying on a huge couch, pushed to the
fireside, and there were furs about her. A striped scarf of rich
Eastern silk was round her throat, and she held in her hand a new
novel, of which she carelessly cut the pages with a broad-hafted
Persian knife. But there was colour in her dark cheek, and a sort of
angry fire in her eyes. Nino thought the clean steel in her hand
looked as though it might be used for something besides cutting
leaves, if the fancy took her.
"So at last you have honoured me with a visit, signore," she said, not
desisting from her occupation. Nino came to her, and she put out her
hand. He touched it, but could not bear to hold it, for it burned him.
"You used to honour my hand differently from that," she half
whispered. Nino sat himself down a little way from her, blushing
slightly. It was not at what she had said, but at the thought that he
should ever have kissed her fingers.
"Signora," he replied, "there are customs, chivalrous and gentle in
themselves, and worthy for all men to practise. But from the moment a
custom begins to mean what it should not, it ought to be abandoned.
You will forgive me if I no longer kiss your hand."
"How cold you are!--how formal! What should it mean?"
"It is better to say too little than too much," he answered.
"Bah!" she cried, with a bitter little laugh. "Words are silver, but
silence--is very often nothing but silver-plated brass. Put a little
more wood on the fire; you make me cold." Nino obeyed.
"How literal you are!" said the baroness petulantly. "There is fire
enough on the hearth."
"Apparently, signora, you are pleased to be enigmatical," said Nino.
"I will be pleased to be anything I please," she answered, and looked
at him rather fiercely. "I wanted you to drive away my headache, and
you only make it worse."
"I am sorry, signora. I will leave you at once. Permit me to wish you
a very good-morning." He took his hat and went towards the door.
Before he reached the heavy curtain, she was at his side with a rush
like a falcon on the wing, her eyes burning darkly between anger and
love.
"Nino!" She laid hold of his arm, and looked into his face.
"Signora," he protested coldly, and drew back.
"You will not leave me so?"
"As you wish, signora. I desire to oblige you."
"Oh, how cold you are!" she cried, leaving his arm, and sinking into a
chair by the door, while he stood with his hand on the curtain. She
hid her eyes. "Nino, Nino! You will break my heart!" she sobbed; and a
tear, perhaps more of anger than of sorrow, burst through her fingers,
and coursed down her cheek.
Few men can bear to see a woman shed tears. Nino's nature rose up in
his throat, and bade him console her. But between him and her was a
fair, bright image that forbade him to move hand or foot.
"Signora," he said, with all the calm he could command, "if I were
conscious of having by word or deed of mine given you cause to speak
thus, I would humbly implore your forgiveness. But my heart does not
accuse me. I beg you to allow me to take leave of you. I will go
away, and you shall have no further cause to think of me." He moved
again, and lifted the curtain. But she was like a panther, so quick
and beautiful. Ah, how I could have loved that woman! She held him,
and would not let him go, her smooth fingers fastening round his
wrists like springs.
"Please to let me go," he said, between his teeth, with rising anger.
"No! I will not let you!" she cried fiercely, tightening her grasp on
him. Then the angry fire in her tearful eyes seemed suddenly to melt
into a soft flame, and the colour came faster to her cheeks. "Ah, how
can you let me so disgrace myself! how can you see me fallen so low as
to use the strength of my hands, and yet have no pity? Nino, Nino, do
not kill me!"
"Indeed, it would be the better for you if I should," he answered
bitterly, but without attempting to free his wrists from the strong,
soft grip.
"But you will," she murmured, passionately. "You are killing me by
leaving me. Can you not see it?" Her voice melted away in the tearful
cadence. But Nino stood gazing at her as stonily as though he were the
Sphinx. How could he have the heart? I cannot tell. Long she looked
into his eyes, silently; but she might as well have tried to animate a
piece of iron, so stern and hard he was. Suddenly, with a strong
convulsive movement, she flung his hands from her.
"Go!" she cried hoarsely. "Go to that wax doll you love, and see
whether she will love you, or care whether you leave her or not! Go,
go, go! Go to her!" She had sprung far back from him, and now pointed
to the door, drawn to her full height and blazing in her wrath.
"I would advise you, madam, to speak with proper respect of any lady
with whom you choose to couple my name." His lips opened and shut
mechanically, and he trembled from head to foot.
"Respect!" She laughed wildly. "Respect for a mere child whom you
happen to fancy! Respect, indeed, for anything you choose to do!
I--I--respect Hedwig von Lira? Ha! ha!" and she rested her hand on the
table behind her, as she laughed.
"Be silent, madam," said Nino, and he moved a step nearer, and stood
with folded arms.
"Ah! You would silence me now, would you? You would rather not hear me
speak of your midnight serenades, and your sweet letters dropped from
the window of her room at your feet?" But her rage overturned itself,
and with a strange cry she fell into a deep chair, and wept bitterly,
burying her face in her two hands. "Miserable woman that I am!" she
sobbed, and her whole lithe body was convulsed.
"You are indeed," said Nino, and he turned once more to go. But as he
turned, the servant threw back the curtain.
"The Signor Conte di Lira," he announced, in distinct tones. For a
moment there was a dead silence, during which, in spite of his
astonishment at the sudden appearance of the count, Nino had time to
reflect that the baroness had caused him to be watched during the
previous night. It might well be, and the mistake she made in
supposing the thing Hedwig had dropped to be a letter told him that
her spy had not ventured very near.
The tall count came forward under the raised curtains, limping and
helping himself with his stick. His face was as gray and wooden as
ever, but his moustaches had an irritated, crimped look that Nino did
not like. The count barely nodded to the young man as he stood aside
to let the old gentleman pass; his eyes turned mechanically to where
the baroness sat. She was a woman who had no need to simulate passion
in any shape, and it must have cost her a terrible effort to control
the paroxysm of anger and shame and grief that had overcome her. There
was something unnatural and terrifying in her sudden calm, as she
forced herself to rise and greet her visitor.
"I fear I come out of season," he said, apologetically, as he bent
over her hand.
"On the contrary," she answered; "but forgive me if I speak one word
to Professor Cardegna." She went to where Nino was standing.
"Go into that room," she said, in a very low voice, glancing towards a
curtained door opposite the windows, "and wait till he goes. You may
listen if you choose." She spoke authoritatively.
"I will not," answered Nino, in a determined whisper.
"You will not?" Her eyes flashed again. He shook his head.
"Count von Lira," she said aloud, turning to him, "do you know this
young man?" She spoke in Italian, and Von Lira answered in the same
language; but as what he said was not exactly humorous, I will spare
you the strange construction of his sentences.
"Perfectly," he answered. "It is precisely concerning this young man
that I desire to speak with you." The count remained standing because
the baroness had not told him to be seated.
"That is fortunate," replied the baroness, "for I wish to inform you
that he is a villain, a wretch, a miserable fellow!" Her anger was
rising again, but she struggled to control it. When Nino realised what
she said he came forward and stood near the count, facing the
baroness, his arms folded on his breast, as though to challenge
accusation. The count raised his eyebrows.
"I am aware that he concealed his real profession so long as he gave
my daughter lessons. That, however, has been satisfactorily explained,
though I regret it. Pray inform me why you designate him as a
villain." Nino felt a thrill of sympathy for this man whom he had so
long deceived.
"This man, sir," said she, in measured tones, "this low-born singer,
who has palmed himself off on us as a respectable instructor in
language, has the audacity to love your daughter. For the sake of
pressing his odious suit he has wormed himself into your house as into
mine; he has sung beneath your daughter's window, and she has dropped
letters to him,--love-letters, do you understand? And now,"--her voice
rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's
face turn white, and her anger gave desperate utterance to the
lie,--"and now he has the effrontery to come to me--to me--to me of
all women--and to confess his abominable passion for that pure angel,
imploring me to assist him in bringing destruction upon her and you.
Oh, it is execrable, it is vile, it is hellish!" She pressed her hands
to her temples as she stood, and glared at the two men. The count was
a strong man, easily petulant, but hard to move to real anger. Though
his face was white and his right hand clutched his crutch-stick, he
still kept the mastery of himself.
"Is what you tell me true, madam?" he asked in a strange voice.
"Before God, it is true!" she cried, desperately.
The old man looked at her for one moment, and then, as though he had
been twenty years younger, he made at Nino, brandishing his stick to
strike. But Nino is strong and young, and he is almost a Roman. He
foresaw the count's action, and his right hand stole to the table and
grasped the clean, murderous knife; the baroness had used it so
innocently to cut the leaves of her book half an hour before. With one
wrench he had disarmed the elder man, forced him back upon a lounge,
and set the razor edge of his weapon against the count's throat.
"If you speak one word, or try to strike me, I will cut off your
head," he said quietly, bringing his cold, marble face close down to
the old man's eyes. There was something so deathly in his voice, in
spite of its quiet sound, that the count thought his hour was come,
brave man as he was. The baroness tottered back against the opposite
wall, and stood staring at the two, dishevelled and horrified.
"This woman," said Nino, still holding the cold thing against the
flesh, "lies in part, and in part tells the truth I love your
daughter, it is true." The poor old man quivered beneath Nino's
weight, and his eyes rolled wildly, searching for some means of
escape. But it was of no use. "I love her, and have sung beneath her
window; but I never had a written word from her in my life, and I
neither told this woman of my love nor asked her assistance. She
guessed it at the first; she guessed the reason of my disguise, and
she herself offered to help me. You may speak now. Ask her." Nino
relaxed his hold, and stood off, still grasping the knife. The old
count breathed, shook himself and passed his handkerchief over his
face before he spoke. The baroness stood as though she were petrified.
"Thunder weather, you are a devilish young man!" said Von Lira, still
panting. Then he suddenly recovered his dignity. "You have caused me
to assault this young man by what you told me," he said, struggling to
his feet. "He defended himself, and might have killed me, had he
chosen. Be good enough to tell me whether he has spoken the truth or
you."
"He has spoken--the truth," answered the baroness, staring vacantly
about her. Her fright had taken from her even the faculty of lying.
Her voice was low, but she articulated the words distinctly. Then,
suddenly, she threw up her hands, with a short quick scream, and fell
forward, senseless, on the floor. Nino looked at the count, and
dropped his knife on a table. The count looked at Nino.
"Sir," said the old gentleman, "I forgive you for resisting my
assault. I do not forgive you for presuming to love my daughter, and I
will find means to remind you of the scandal you have brought on my
house." He drew himself up to his full height. Nino handed him his
crutch-stick civilly.
"Signor Conte," he said simply, but with all his natural courtesy, "I
am sorry for this affair, to which you forced me,--or rather the
Signora Baronessa forced us both. I have acted foolishly, perhaps, but
I am in love. And permit me to assure you, sir, that I will yet marry
the Signorina di Lira, if she consents to marry me."
"By the name of Heaven," swore the old count, "if she wants to marry a
singer, she shall." He limped to the door in sullen anger, and went
out. Nino turned to the prostrate figure of the poor baroness. The
continued strain on her nerves had broken her down, and she lay on the
floor in a dead faint. Nino put a cushion from the lounge under her
head, and rang the bell. The servant appeared instantly.
"Bring water quickly!" he cried. "The signora has fainted." He stood
looking at the senseless figure of the woman, as she lay across the
rich Persian rugs that covered the floor.
"Why did you not bring salts, cologne, her maid--run, I tell you!" he
said to the man, who brought the glass of water on a gilded tray. He
had forgotten that the fellow could not be expected to have any sense.
When her people came at last, he had sprinkled her face, and she had
unconsciously swallowed enough of the water to have some effect in
reviving her. She began to open her eyes, and her fingers moved
nervously. Nino found his hat, and, casting one glance around the room
that had just witnessed such strange doings, passed through the door
and went out. The baroness was left with her servants. Poor woman! She
did very wrong, perhaps, but anybody would have loved her--except
Nino. She must have been terribly shaken, one would have thought, and
she ought to have gone to lie down, and should have sent for the
doctor to bleed her. But she did nothing of the kind.
She came to see me. I was alone in the house, late in the afternoon,
when the sun was just gilding the tops of the houses. I heard the
door-bell ring, and I went to answer it myself. There stood the
beautiful baroness, alone, with all her dark soft things around her,
as pale as death, and her eyes swollen sadly with weeping. Nino had
come home and told me something about the scene in the morning, and I
can tell you I gave him a piece of my mind about his follies.
"Does Professor Cornelio Grandi live here?" she asked, in a low, sad
voice.
"I am he, signora," I answered. "Will you please to come in?" And so
she came into our little sitting-room, and sat over there in the old
green arm-chair. I shall never forget it as long as I live.
I cannot tell you all she said in that brief half-hour, for it pains
me to think of it. She spoke as though I were her confessor, so humbly
and quietly,--as though it had all happened ten years ago. There is
no stubbornness in those tiger women when once they break down.
She said she was going away; that she had done my boy a great wrong,
and wished to make such reparation as she could, by telling me, at
least, the truth. She did not scruple to say that she had loved him,
nor that she had done everything in her power to keep him; though he
had never so much as looked at her, she added, pathetically. She
wished to have me know exactly how it happened, no matter what I might
think of her.
"You are a nobleman, count," she said to me at last, "and I can trust
you as one of my own people, I am sure. Yes, I know: you have been
unfortunate, and are now a professor. But that does not change the
blood. I can trust you. You need not tell him I came, unless you wish
it. I shall never see him again. I am glad to have been here, to see
where he lives." She rose, and moved to go. I confess that the tears
were in my eyes. There was a pile of music on the old piano. There was
a loose leaf on the top, with his name written on it. She took it in
her hand, and looked inquiringly at me out of her sad eyes. I knew she
wanted to take it, and I nodded.
"I shall never see him again, you know." Her voice was gentle and
weak, and she hastened to the door; so that almost before I knew it
she was gone. The sun had left the red-tiled roofs opposite, and the
goldfinch was silent in his cage. So I sat down in the chair where she
had rested, and folded my hands, and thought, as I am always thinking
ever since, how I could have loved such a woman as that; so
passionate, so beautiful, so piteously sorry for what she had done
that was wrong. Ah me! for the years that are gone away so cruelly,
for the days so desperately dead! Give me but one of those golden
days, and I would make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
A greater man than I said that,--a man over the seas, with a great
soul, who wrote in a foreign tongue, but spoke a language germane to
all human speech. But even he cannot bring back one of those dear
days. I would give much to have that one day back, when she came and
told me all her woes. But that is impossible.
When they came to wake her in the morning--the very morning after
that--she was dead in her bed; the colour gone for ever from those
velvet cheeks, the fire quenched out of those passionate eyes, past
power of love or hate to rekindle. _Requiescat in pace_, and may God
give her eternal rest and forgiveness for all her sins. Poor,
beautiful, erring woman!