Fu stupor, fu vaghezza, fu diletto!
“Gerusal. Lib.,” cant. ii. xxi.
(“Desire it was, ‘t was wonder, ‘t was delight.”
Wiffen’s Translation.)
Now at last the education is accomplished! Viola is nearly sixteen.
The Cardinal declares that the time is come when the new name must be
inscribed in the Libro d’Oro,--the Golden Book set apart to the children
of Art and Song. Yes, but in what character?--to whose genius is she
to give embodiment and form? Ah, there is the secret! Rumours go abroad
that the inexhaustible Paisiello, charmed with her performance of his
“Nel cor piu non me sento,” and his “Io son Lindoro,” will produce some
new masterpiece to introduce the debutante. Others insist upon it that
her forte is the comic, and that Cimarosa is hard at work at another
“Matrimonia Segreto.” But in the meanwhile there is a check in the
diplomacy somewhere. The Cardinal is observed to be out of humour. He
has said publicly,--and the words are portentous,--“The silly girl is
as mad as her father; what she asks is preposterous!” Conference follows
conference; the Cardinal talks to the poor child very solemnly in
his closet,--all in vain. Naples is distracted with curiosity and
conjecture. The lecture ends in a quarrel, and Viola comes home sullen
and pouting: she will not act,--she has renounced the engagement.
Pisani, too inexperienced to be aware of all the dangers of the stage,
had been pleased at the notion that one, at least, of his name would add
celebrity to his art. The girl’s perverseness displeased him. However,
he said nothing,--he never scolded in words, but he took up the faithful
barbiton. Oh, faithful barbiton, how horribly thou didst scold! It
screeched, it gabbled, it moaned, it growled. And Viola’s eyes filled
with tears, for she understood that language. She stole to her mother,
and whispered in her ear; and when Pisani turned from his employment,
lo! both mother and daughter were weeping. He looked at them with a
wondering stare; and then, as if he felt he had been harsh, he flew
again to his Familiar. And now you thought you heard the lullaby which a
fairy might sing to some fretful changeling it had adopted and sought to
soothe. Liquid, low, silvery, streamed the tones beneath the enchanted
bow. The most stubborn grief would have paused to hear; and withal,
at times, out came a wild, merry, ringing note, like a laugh, but not
mortal laughter. It was one of his most successful airs from his beloved
opera,--the Siren in the act of charming the waves and the winds to
sleep. Heaven knows what next would have come, but his arm was arrested.
Viola had thrown herself on his breast, and kissed him, with happy
eyes that smiled through her sunny hair. At that very moment the door
opened,--a message from the Cardinal. Viola must go to his Eminence at
once. Her mother went with her. All was reconciled and settled; Viola
had her way, and selected her own opera. O ye dull nations of the North,
with your broils and debates,--your bustling lives of the Pnyx and
the Agora!--you cannot guess what a stir throughout musical Naples was
occasioned by the rumour of a new opera and a new singer. But whose
the opera? No cabinet intrigue ever was so secret. Pisani came back one
night from the theatre, evidently disturbed and irate. Woe to thine ears
hadst thou heard the barbiton that night! They had suspended him from
his office,--they feared that the new opera, and the first debut of
his daughter as prima donna, would be too much for his nerves. And his
variations, his diablerie of sirens and harpies, on such a night, made
a hazard not to be contemplated without awe. To be set aside, and on the
very night that his child, whose melody was but an emanation of his own,
was to perform,--set aside for some new rival: it was too much for a
musician’s flesh and blood. For the first time he spoke in words upon
the subject, and gravely asked--for that question the barbiton, eloquent
as it was, could not express distinctly--what was to be the opera, and
what the part? And Viola as gravely answered that she was pledged to the
Cardinal not to reveal. Pisani said nothing, but disappeared with
the violin; and presently they heard the Familiar from the house-top
(whither, when thoroughly out of humour, the musician sometimes fled),
whining and sighing as if its heart were broken.
The affections of Pisani were little visible on the surface. He was not
one of those fond, caressing fathers whose children are ever playing
round their knees; his mind and soul were so thoroughly in his art that
domestic life glided by him, seemingly as if THAT were a dream, and
the heart the substantial form and body of existence. Persons
much cultivating an abstract study are often thus; mathematicians
proverbially so. When his servant ran to the celebrated French
philosopher, shrieking, “The house is on fire, sir!” “Go and tell my
wife then, fool!” said the wise man, settling back to his problems;
“do _I_ ever meddle with domestic affairs?” But what are mathematics to
music--music, that not only composes operas, but plays on the barbiton?
Do you know what the illustrious Giardini said when the tyro asked how
long it would take to learn to play on the violin? Hear, and despair, ye
who would bend the bow to which that of Ulysses was a plaything, “Twelve
hours a day for twenty years together!” Can a man, then, who plays the
barbiton be always playing also with his little ones? No, Pisani; often,
with the keen susceptibility of childhood, poor Viola had stolen from
the room to weep at the thought that thou didst not love her. And yet,
underneath this outward abstraction of the artist, the natural fondness
flowed all the same; and as she grew up, the dreamer had understood the
dreamer. And now, shut out from all fame himself; to be forbidden to
hail even his daughter’s fame!--and that daughter herself to be in
the conspiracy against him! Sharper than the serpent’s tooth was the
ingratitude, and sharper than the serpent’s tooth was the wail of the
pitying barbiton!
The eventful hour is come. Viola is gone to the theatre,--her mother
with her. The indignant musician remains at home. Gionetta bursts into
the room: my Lord Cardinal’s carriage is at the door,--the Padrone is
sent for. He must lay aside his violin; he must put on his brocade coat
and his lace ruffles. Here they are,--quick, quick! And quick rolls the
gilded coach, and majestic sits the driver, and statelily prance the
steeds. Poor Pisani is lost in a mist of uncomfortable amaze. He arrives
at the theatre; he descends at the great door; he turns round and
round, and looks about him and about: he misses something,--where is the
violin? Alas! his soul, his voice, his self of self, is left behind! It
is but an automaton that the lackeys conduct up the stairs, through the
tier, into the Cardinal’s box. But then, what bursts upon him! Does he
dream? The first act is over (they did not send for him till success
seemed no longer doubtful); the first act has decided all. He feels THAT
by the electric sympathy which ever the one heart has at once with
a vast audience. He feels it by the breathless stillness of that
multitude; he feels it even by the lifted finger of the Cardinal. He
sees his Viola on the stage, radiant in her robes and gems,--he hears
her voice thrilling through the single heart of the thousands! But the
scene, the part, the music! It is his other child,--his immortal child;
the spirit-infant of his soul; his darling of many years of patient
obscurity and pining genius; his masterpiece; his opera of the Siren!
This, then, was the mystery that had so galled him,--this the cause of
the quarrel with the Cardinal; this the secret not to be proclaimed till
the success was won, and the daughter had united her father’s triumph
with her own! And there she stands, as all souls bow before her,--fairer
than the very Siren he had called from the deeps of melody. Oh, long and
sweet recompense of toil! Where is on earth the rapture like that which
is known to genius when at last it bursts from its hidden cavern into
light and fame!
He did not speak, he did not move; he stood transfixed, breathless, the
tears rolling down his cheeks; only from time to time his hands still
wandered about,--mechanically they sought for the faithful instrument,
why was it not there to share his triumph?
At last the curtain fell; but on such a storm and diapason of applause!
Up rose the audience as one man, as with one voice that dear name was
shouted. She came on, trembling, pale, and in the whole crowd saw but
her father’s face. The audience followed those moistened eyes; they
recognised with a thrill the daughter’s impulse and her meaning. The
good old Cardinal drew him gently forward. Wild musician, thy daughter
has given thee back more than the life thou gavest!
“My poor violin!” said he, wiping his eyes, “they will never hiss thee
again now!”