They spoke in French, with an occasional phrase in Italian when they
found the other tongue lacking in melody or in the exact shade of meaning
that they sought to express. Edward Burney thought that the moment was
one that favoured his ambition to study the pose of Madame Gabrielli,
with a view to starting on a portrait that should make him famous. He
asked Fanny’s permission to allow him to take up a place a few yards
beyond the pillar. He promised not to be long absent, and Fanny had not
the heart to detain him.
“You fled from me—was that kind?” asked Rauzzini when the cousin had
moved away, but was still in view.
“Ah,” said she, “one who has my odious self-consciousness does not ask
what is kind or unkind, she simply flies.”
“But you knew that I was coming to your side?” said he.
“I know that you are wise enough to value the criticism of a musician
like my father above the vapid phrases of the people of fashion,” replied
Fanny.
“That is true indeed,” said he. “I value a word of praise or blame from
Dr. Burney as precious. But Dr. Burney has a daughter whose words are to
me as precious.”
“She is not here to-night,” said Fanny. “My sister Esther, to whom you
refer, is indeed a discriminating critic. She told me how exquisitely you
sang at the concert where you met her—it is scarcely a fortnight ago.”
“Dr. Burney has more daughters than that one,” said he.
Fanny laughed.
“He has indeed more daughters than one,” she said. “We were a household
of daughters before Esther married and when my brother was in the South
Seas. But only Esther is critical as a musician.”
“In the name of heaven, do you think that it is only possible for me to
value words that refer to my singing?” he asked. “Do you not know that I
would rather listen to your voice than—”
“Than Madame Gabrielli’s?” said Fanny; he had spoken his last sentence in
too loud a tone, even though the Gabrielli’s brilliant vocalism usually
admitted of a conversation being carried on with some vehemence in the
great room of the Pantheon without causing remark.
He smiled at her warning, and it was in a subdued voice that he said:
“I am tired of hearing the Gabrielli; but what of your voice? How often
have you given me the chance of hearing it? Even now you fled from me as
though I carried the plague about with me! Was that kind or unkind?”
“You do not entertain the thought that perhaps I have not yet tired
of Madame Gabrielli’s vocalism: I knew that she was at the point of
beginning her aria.”
“You would sacrifice me on the altar of your favourite? Well, perhaps you
would be justified in doing so. Hold up your finger now and I shall be
mute as a fish until Gabrielli has had her last shriek. I can still look
at you—it will not spoil your appreciation of the aria if I merely look
at you.”
“I think I would rather that you talked to me than merely looked at me.
I do not invite people to look at me, and happily few people do. I am
not conspicuous I am the insignificant one. There is Mrs. Thrale, for
instance; she has been several times at our house, and every time she
comes she inquires who is the little one.”
He smiled and held up his finger in imitation of the way she had rebuked
him for talking too loud.
“H’sh; I am anxious to hear the Signora Gabrielli,” he said, and
the expression that he made his face assume at that moment would
have convinced anyone that he was giving all his attention to the
singing—drinking in every note with the earnestness of an enthusiast.
There was a certain boyish exaggeration in his expression that was very
amusing to Fanny, though less observing persons would have been ready to
accept it as evidence of the generous appreciation on the part of one
great singer of the success of another.
So he remained until the _cavatina_ had come to an end; and then he was
loudest in his cry of “Brava!”
“It is a treat—a great—a sacred treat,” said he, turning to Fanny. “I do
not think I ever heard that song before. Has it a name, I wonder?”
“If I mistake not it is from an opera in which a certain Roman tenore
made a name for himself last year, in happy conjunction with Madame
Gabrielli,” said Fanny.
“Is it possible? I had not heard of that circumstance,” said he, with a
look of the most charming innocence in his large eyes. It was his hands
that were most expressive, however, as he added:
“But it was last year, you say, mademoiselle? Ah, who is it that
remembers an opera from one year to another? No one, except the
_impresario_ who has lost his good money, or somebody’s else’s money,
over its production. Enough, the _cantatrice_ has given us of her best,
and is there now any reason why we should remain dumb? The great charm
of the singing of these brilliant artistes of last year’s operas is that
when they have sung, they have sung—they leave one nothing to think about
afterward. Is not that so, mademoiselle?”
“They leave one nothing to think about—except their singing,” said Fanny.
“For myself, I am still thinking of ‘Waft her, angels,’ although nearly
half an hour must have passed since I heard the last notes. And it seems
to me that when half a century will have passed I shall still be thinking
of it.”
He did not offer her the conventional acknowledgment of a bow. He
only looked at her with those large eyes of his; they were capable of
expressing in a single glance all the tenderness of feeling of a poem.
“I have not sung in vain,” he said in a low tone. “My old _maestro_ gave
me the advice one day when I was proving to him my success in reaching
the high note which I had been striving for years to bring into my
compass: ‘That is all very well,’ he said. ‘You have aimed at touching
that rare note, now your aim must be to touch the heart of everyone who
hears you sing.’ I sometimes think that he set for me too difficult a
task.”
“Not too difficult—for you,” said she.
“There are dangers,” he said thoughtfully. “I have known singers who
tried to reach the hearts of their hearers by tricks—yes, and they
succeeded through these illegitimate means in making themselves popular,
while far better singers who had a scorn of such tricks and gave their
best to all who listened to them, failed to please anyone who had not a
knowledge of the true boundary of music.”
“I have seen these tricksters, too,” said Fanny. “I have witnessed
their sentimental grimaces—their head shakings—their appeal to the
feelings with pathetic eyes turned heavenward. They made me ashamed of
them—ashamed of myself for listening to them, though people about me had
been moved to tears. But I think that the people who are easily moved to
tears are those who retain an impression the shortest space of time.”
“You give me confidence—encouragement,” he cried. “I have made up my mind
that if I cannot reach a heart by the straight King’s highway, I will
not try to do so by any bypath. Bypaths are, we know, the resorts of
brigands: they may captivate a heart or two, but only to leave them empty
afterwards.”
So they talked together for many minutes. Fanny Burney had a sufficient
acquaintance among musicians, vocal as well as instrumental, to have
learned, long ago, that they can easily be prevented from talking on any
other subject than music, and the same reflection that had caused her to
say that “Not yet—not yet,” had impelled her to lead Rauzzini in another
direction than that in which he had shown so strong a tendency to go.
He had been trying to make her understand that he had travelled through
the obstructions of the hall not in order that he might obtain the
criticism of so accomplished a _maestro_ as Dr. Burney upon his singing,
but in order that he should have a chance of talking to Dr. Burney’s
unaccomplished daughter; he had shown her that his wish was to converse
on the topic of this unaccomplished daughter; but she had no mind to
acquiesce in his aims for the present. She still felt herself to be the
beggar maid, and she would not allow her king to get any nearer to her.
It was not until her cousin had returned to where she was seated, that
the young Italian found that he had not made much progress with his suit.
He had intended that this _tête-à-tête_ with her should make her aware of
how he felt in regard to her, but he had allowed his opportunity to pass,
and in place of talking about her he had been led to talk of himself.
That was how he expressed himself to her when he found that their
_tête-à-tête_ was at an end.
“How has this come about?” he cried in surprise. “How is it that I have
shown myself to be so vain as to make speeches about my singing when I
meant to talk to you of yourself?”
“’Twas I who found a more profitable topic for you, _signore mio_,” she
replied, feeling her way through the words of his native tongue, for he
had spoken out his surprise in Italian.
He shook his head and made a gesture with his hands.
“But it is a mystery!” he said in French. “I had no desire to talk about
myself or my singing. I meant to tell you what was in my mind when I saw
you entering this place with your father. Shall we retrace our steps in
our conversation until I find how it was that I took a wrong turning?
Alas! I fear that it would not be possible!”
“It would not be possible, indeed,” she replied. “Did you not say
something about the bypaths being dangerous with banditti? We kept
our feet upon the King’s highway, which is safe. I was swept off my
feet—carried away—away—by your singing of the aria; I had scarce touched
the earth once more when you came to my side, and now we are parting
happily, you to realize your aspirations, I to—to—well, to retain for
ever the memory of your singing—the memory of those celestial harmonies
into the midst of which I was wafted by the angels of your imploration.
That is enough for one evening of my life. Nay, you must not speak
another word lest the charm of all should fade away. I shall go home to
dream of angels.”
“And I shall go to dream of you,” he said in a low tone.
He did not hold her hand so long as Thomas Barlowe had done when parting
from her, but she felt that somehow he had accomplished more by his
reserve than Thomas had achieved by his impetuosity. She hoped that she
might never see Thomas again; but for Signor Rauzzini—
They parted.