While Flora was listlessly gazing at Monte Pincio from the solitude of
her room in the Via delle Quattro Fontane, Rosabella was looking at
the same object, seen at a greater distance, over intervening houses,
from her high lodgings in the Corso. She could see the road winding
like a ribbon round the hill, with a medley of bright colors
continually moving over it. But she was absorbed in revery, and they
floated round and round before her mental eye, like the revolving
shadows of a magic lantern.
She was announced to sing that night, as the new Spanish _prima
donna_, La Señorita Rosita Campaneo; and though she had been applauded
by manager and musicians at the rehearsal that morning, her spirit
shrank from the task. Recent letters from America had caused deep
melancholy; and the idea of singing, not _con amore_, but as a
performer before an audience of entire strangers, filled her with
dismay. She remembered how many times she and Flora and Gerald had
sung together from Norma; and an oppressive feeling of loneliness came
over her. Returning from rehearsal, a few hours before, she had seen
a young Italian girl, who strongly reminded her of her lost sister.
"Ah!" thought she, "if Flora and I had gone out into the world
together, to make our own way, as Madame first intended, how much
sorrow and suffering I might have been spared!" She went to the piano,
where the familiar music of Norma lay open before her, and from the
depths of her saddened soul gushed forth, "_Ah, bello a me Ritorno_."
The last tone passed sighingly away, and as her hands lingered on the
keys, she murmured, "Will my heart pass into it there, before that
crowd of strange faces, as it does here?"
"To be sure it will, dear," responded Madame, who had entered softly
and stood listening to the last strains.
"Ah, if all would hear with _your_ partial ears!" replied Rosabella,
with a glimmering smile. "But they will not. And I may be so
frightened that I shall lose my voice."
"What have you to be afraid of, darling?" rejoined Madame. "It was
more trying to sing at private parties of accomplished musicians, as
you did in Paris; and especially at the palace, where there was such
an _élite_ company. Yet you know that Queen Amelia was so much pleased
with your performance of airs from this same opera, that she sent you
the beautiful enamelled wreath you are to wear to-night."
"What I was singing when you came in wept itself out of the fulness of
my heart," responded Rosabella. "This dreadful news of Tulee and the
baby unfits me for anything. Do you think there is no hope it may
prove untrue?"
"You know the letter explicitly states that my cousin and his wife,
the negro woman, and the white baby, all died of yellow-fever,"
replied Madame. "But don't reproach me for leaving them, darling. I
feel badly enough about it, already. I thought it would be healthy so
far out of the city; and it really seemed the best thing to do with
the poor little _bambino_, until we could get established somewhere."
"I did not intend to reproach you, my kind friend," answered Rosa. "I
know you meant it all for the best. But I had a heavy presentiment of
evil when you first told me they were left. This news makes it hard
for me to keep up my heart for the efforts of the evening. You know I
was induced to enter upon this operatic career mainly by the hope of
educating that poor child, and providing well for the old age of
you and Papa Balbino, as I have learned to call my good friend, the
Signor. And poor Tulee, too,--how much I intended to do for her! No
mortal can ever know what she was to me in the darkest hours of my
life."
"Well, poor Tulee's troubles are all over," rejoined Madame, with a
sigh; "and _bambinos_ escape a great deal of suffering by going out of
this wicked world. For, between you and I, dear, I don't believe one
word about the innocent little souls staying in purgatory on account
of not being baptized."
"O, my friend, if you only _knew_!" exclaimed Rosa, in a wild,
despairing tone. But she instantly checked herself, and said: "I will
try not to think of it; for if I do, I shall spoil my voice; and Papa
Balbino would be dreadfully mortified if I failed, after he had taken
so much pains to have me brought out."
"That is right, darling," rejoined Madame, patting her on the
shoulder. "I will go away, and leave you to rehearse."
Again and again Rosa sang the familiar airs, trying to put soul into
them, by imagining how she would feel if she were in Norma's position.
Some of the emotions she knew by her own experience, and those she
sang with her deepest feeling.
"If I could only keep the same visions before me that I have here
alone, I should sing well to-night," she said to herself; "for now,
when I sing 'Casta Diva,' I seem to be sitting with my arm round dear
little Flora, watching the moon as it rises above the dark pines on
that lonely island."
At last the dreaded hour came. Rosa appeared on the stage with her
train of priestesses. The orchestra and the audience were before her;
and she knew that Papa and Mamma Balbino were watching her from the
side with anxious hearts. She was very pale, and her first notes were
a little tremulous. But her voice soon became clear and strong; and
when she fixed her eyes on the moon, and sang "Casta Diva," the
fulness and richness of the tones took everybody by surprise.
"_Bis! Bis_!" cried the audience; and the chorus was not allowed to
proceed till she had sung it a second and third time. She courtesied
her acknowledgments gracefully. But as she retired, ghosts of the past
went with her; and with her heart full of memories, she seemed to weep
in music, while she sang in Italian, "Restore to mine affliction one
smile of love's protection." Again the audience shouted, "_Bis! Bis_!"
The duet with Adalgisa was more difficult; for she had not yet learned
to be an actress, and she was embarrassed by the consciousness of
being an object of jealousy to the _seconda donna_, partly because
she was _prima_, and partly because the tenor preferred her. But when
Adalgisa sang in Italian the words, "Behold him!" she chanced to
raise her eyes to a box near the stage, and saw the faces of Gerald
Fitzgerald and his wife bending eagerly toward her. She shuddered, and
for an instant her voice failed her. The audience were breathless. Her
look, her attitude, her silence, her tremor, all seemed inimitable
acting. A glance at the foot-lights and at the orchestra recalled the
recollection of where she was, and by a strong effort she controlled
herself; though there was still an agitation in her voice, which the
audience and the singers thought to be the perfection of acting. Again
she glanced at Fitzgerald, and there was terrible power in the tones
with which she uttered, in Italian, "Tremble, perfidious one! Thou
knowest the cause is ample."
Her eyes rested for a moment on Mrs. Fitzgerald, and with a wonderful
depth of pitying sadness, she sang, "O, how his art deceived thee!"
The wish she had formed was realized. She was enabled to give voice to
her own emotions, forgetful of the audience for the time being. And
even in subsequent scenes, when the recollection of being a performer
returned upon her, her inward excitation seemed to float her onward,
like a great wave.
Once again her own feelings took her up, like a tornado, and made her
seem a wonderful actress. In the scene where Norma is tempted to kill
her children, she fixed her indignant gaze full upon Fitzgerald, and
there was an indescribable expression of stern resolution in her
voice, and of pride in the carriage of her queenly head, while she
sang: "Disgrace worse than death awaits them. Slavery? No! never!"
Fitzgerald quailed before it. He grew pale, and slunk back in the
box. The audience had never seen the part so conceived, and a few
criticised it. But her beauty and her voice and her overflowing
feeling carried all before her; and this, also, was accepted as a
remarkable inspiration of theatrical genius.
When the wave of her own excitement was subsiding, the magnetism of an
admiring audience began to affect her strongly. With an outburst of
fury, she sang, "War! War!" The audience cried, "_Bis! Bis_!" and she
sang it as powerfully the second time.
What it was that had sustained and carried her through that terrible
ordeal, she could never understand.
When the curtain dropped, Fitzgerald was about to rush after her; but
his wife caught his arm, and he was obliged to follow. It was an awful
penance he underwent, submitting to this necessary restraint; and
while his soul was seething like a boiling caldron, he was obliged to
answer evasively to Lily's frequent declaration that the superb voice
of this Spanish _prima donna_ was exactly like the wonderful voice
that went wandering round the plantation, like a restless ghost.
Papa and Mamma Balbino were waiting to receive the triumphant
_cantatrice_, as she left the stage. "_Brava! Brava_!" shouted the
Signor, in a great fever of excitement; but seeing how pale she
looked, he pressed her hand in silence, while Madame wrapped her in
shawls. They lifted her into the carriage as quickly as possible,
where her head drooped almost fainting on Madame's shoulder. It
required them both to support her unsteady steps, as they mounted the
stairs to their lofty lodging. She told them nothing that night of
having seen Fitzgerald; and, refusing all refreshment save a sip of
wine, she sank on the bed utterly exhausted.