"Therefore," shrugged Annette, "she makes daily the promenade. Also,
she starves--it would bring tears to the eyes to see. What
fortitude! Never a bon-bon, not so much as a pot of chocolate for
the _déjeuner_. Only _café noir_--picture to yourself, on an empty
digestion!" (She made a face of abhorrence.) "And to what avail?
Ah, Mees, I ask of you as one woman to another, to what avail?"
I gazed critically after the retreating figure of the diva, hobbling
heroically on toward the Pincian Gardens, three weary blocks away.
She had indeed developed, beyond repair, a sitting-figure; or as it
is known to my compatriots, the middle-aged spread. And quite
seasonably. While it was difficult to detect other symptoms beneath
the thick liquid-white of her face, the thin geranium-red of her
lips, and the varied glories of her hair, I could not but recall that
her début at San Carlo must have taken place at least thirty-odd
years earlier.
My eyes and Annette's met in mutual regret, and we shook our heads
together. A bond of sympathy was established between us; sympathy
for a fellow-woman in distress.
It led to other conversations in passing, Annette being one of those
to whom breath seems given entirely for purposes of conversation. La
Bella Gina (I wondered whether the song had been named for her, or
she for it) was making a pilgrimage, "as usual at this time of year."
They merely paused at Rome, en route from Naples.... I should not
have thought the singer so devout. One did not like to ask at what
shrine she intended to pay her devotions. Or was it perhaps at the
tomb of some lost loved one? Annette's manner, in speaking of the
pilgrimage, seemed appropriately grave and subdued.
Monsieur le Marchese, also as usual, was accompanying them on the
pilgrimage, although stopping at another hotel; which I thought
extremely delicate of the little gentleman. He had made many
journeys in the train of Madame, it appeared; had followed her
triumphs even to the Americas, and to Mexico. It was on the latter
occasion that he had taken with him his two young sons, in order that
they might have the advantage, the inestimable privilege of intimate
association with such an artist, such a woman of the world. But yes,
Annette assured me, the young noblemen had indeed appreciated the
privilege, Madame being excessively fond of children, particularly of
boys. She had fed them sweets all day long. There had been
afterwards a letter from Madame la Marchesa herself, thanking Madame
Gina for her kindness to the little noblemen.
"What! from their mother?"
But it appeared Madame la Marchesa was their grandmother.
It seemed to me an interesting and unusual relationship. I said so.
Ah, yes, agreed Annette; such fidelity through so many years deserved
its reward, _n'est-ce pas?_--a better reward than La Gina had felt
herself able to bestow, she being wedded to her art.
"And of a discretion _incroyable_. Picture to yourself!--never so
much as an hour alone tête-à-tête with monsieur; always a third
person in attendance!--myself, or Signora the secretary, or the
little noblemen--
"Or the dog Bijou?" I murmured.
"Or the dog Bijou," she assented seriously, "who has, if nothing
else, a nature of the most jealous.... 'While I value your
attachment, my Boncelli, above pearls and rubies' (I who speak have
heard her say this to monsieur, although pearls and rubies are her
favorite gems) 'still, a man may not serve two masters; particularly
if a woman. The competition deranges. My heart'--she said to him,
just like that--'is in my larynx, _cher_ Boncelli, in my diaphragm.
These are your successful rivals.'--The poor Marchese!"
"You think," I asked, "that there is no hope for him whatever?"
She shrugged. "Hope, yes--but what a sad little hope! If ever the
voice fails, then only will the Marchese receive his reward. He is
content to wait. What patience! Each year now we make the
pilgrimage; and some day, when the test is unfavorable..." She gave
a deep sigh. "Even La Bella Gina grows obviously no younger. Ah,
yes, for him there is hope--_hélas_!"
The good creature seemed torn between sentiment for this model lover
and for the exigent voice.
When next I passed the little gentleman, I looked at him with a new
regard. He had seemed before rather a negligible quantity, in his
dapper yellow gloves and high-heeled patent leathers; rather like an
alert elderly crow hopping along under the wing, as it were, of a
resplendent pouter-pigeon. But such faithfulness, such undiscouraged
devotion to an ideal which he might well have found somewhat faded,
lent him dignity; argued powers of endurance which commanded respect.
He engaged sympathy, too; and it was to his matrimonial aspirations,
rather than to the famous larynx, the too-exacting diaphragm, that
one wished success in the forthcoming test, whatever that might be.
I was surprised to find the party at Pisa some days later, when we
came to the grave old scholars' city; stopping at the Hotel of
Neptune, whose unpretentious, restful atmosphere seemed a trifle
primitive to appeal to the highly cultivated taste in hotels of a
Madame Gina. But there they were, in full possession, Bijou, the
harassed lady-secretary, and all, with the Marchese still in discreet
long-distance attendance. He was the guest, so Annette informed me
with some pride, of Monsieur the Archbishop of the diocese, his
cousin.
There was an air of tension, of peculiar gravity about the party by
this time. I fancied that the pilgrimage was wearing toward its
close. Yet I could think of no particular shrine to be visited in
the vicinity, nor of any famous singing master nearer than Florence
to whom La Gina might be bringing the sacred voice for its test.
There were no waters to be taken: on the contrary. As a resort of
either health or fashion, Pisa was nil; and I could not believe the
diva a mere tourist in her native land, searching for atmosphere,
leaning towers, and the like.
Very early the morning after we arrived, one heard them stirring;
they were always easy to hear. Apparently the promenade was about to
take place. But at such an hour? Only natives were abroad, market
women rattling barrows of melons and ripe purple figs over the
cobblestones; goats, the milk wagons of Italy, being made
vociferously to yield of their wares; watchful waiters already
manning the walls of the sleeping Arno, with bamboo poles, in hope
that the early worm would catch the fish at last (there can hardly be
more than one fish left in that ancient and enfeebled stream). The
real Pisa, that of the tourists, would slumber on for at least
another hour; or endeavor to do so.
Yet Madame Gina, who never appeared in public until after the midday
siesta, was unmistakably up and doing; one recognized her deep chest
tones addressing Bijou, evidently about to be left behind: "Na, na,
_piccolo mio!_ mother's jewel cannot accompany us to the mass, it is
not for such as thee. He must remain in his little bassinet and
masticate his little ball, like a good dog of my heart, while his
Gina who adores him goes forth alone to the ordeal!"--here the deep
chest tones faltered and broke.
"Ah, ah, you tear at my heart strings!" sobbed the voice of the
lady-secretary. "See, carissima, you are not alone! Are not _we_
with you?"
"Courage, but courage," came the firm, efficient murmur of Annette.
"Myself I have not a doubt but that things will go quite well, even
better than last year; when, as you remember, Madame was slightly
_enrhumée)."
"_Cara mia_, how you console me!--Signora, pray do not sniffle again;
it is a noise I detest! Quick, my cane! Am I to wait here forever?"
I hurried to the window. Outside stood an open _carrozza_, half filled
with flowers; beside it the Marchese, tugging at his mustache with
nervous yellow gloves. His doglike eyes, turned upon the door, had
an expression of mingled hope and apprehension. Certainly this was
no mere promenade.
Suddenly I understood. The moment of the test had come!
I hurried into some clothes and followed--not a difficult thing to do
since everybody in the street had been seized with the same idea.
Market barrows, milch goats, and fishermen, all of us hastened along
together in the direction of the Duomo. At its doors I recognized
the flower-filled carriage, empty, surrounded by interested
spectators.
"Have we then a wedding?" they asked one another. "A first
communion?"
"No, no!" replied somebody. "Did you not recognize her? La Gina, La
Gina again, in person!"
The great doors of the Cathedral were not yet open, but I managed an
entrance by means of a tip and a lesser door, of green baize; in some
such manner, perhaps, as sinners may enter Paradise. My cavalcade
was there, having a mass all its own, near that ancient swinging lamp
whose constant motion gave Galileo the idea of the pendulum. Level
rays of a new-risen sun, through prismatic glass, touched to pure
glory the rich interior: the black-and-white striped marble of the
walls, the mellowed sculptures, the old, dim saints and madonnas who
are forever young, the burnished silver splendor of the altar. They
knelt in a row at its rail; Gina and the other two women with black
veils over their hair, the Marchese beside them, yellow gloves and a
large plaid handkerchief neatly disposed in the high top hat at his
feet, and beside him the driver of their carriage, in a black Fascist
blouse; all of them receiving the Communion together at the hands of
a sleepy priest. I lingered a moment, to register the picture in my
memory.
Suddenly they rose and filed out past me, in the direction of the
Baptistry. Annette and the secretary walked with bent heads, as if
in prayer; but behind them Gina moved rather splendidly, with lifted
face and a fine, exalted smile on her lips, a victim going forth to
some self-appointed sacrifice. She had forgotten her cane, I saw it
leaning against the altar rail; nor did she avail herself of the arm
of the Marchese, who followed at her elbow.
I waited outside, for at last I knew what was occurring: La Bella
Gina, like many another singer before her, had come to try out an
aging voice by the test of the Baptistry's famous echo.
"Good luck!--Oh, good luck!" I whispered under my breath; not this
time to the Marchese, waiting like a neat little crow for its
pickings, but to the gallant old artist, facing perhaps the end of
her career.
What sounds came out to us there in the young dewy morning; what
trills and birdlike scales, invocations, fragments of
arias--sometimes a trifle off the key, but how impassioned! Great,
golden, contralto organ tones, soft whisperings of pure attenuated
melody, all multiplied, repeated, continued on and on by the
incomparable echo. It seemed to me, and to those who listened with
me, a glorious exhibition of what the human voice could do. We
smiled at one another happily.
"It goes well, eh?" asked my neighbors of one another and of me.
Everybody seemed to realize what was happening. At times they could
not resist applause.
"_Ancora, madonna mia!_" they shouted. "_Brava la Gina! La Gina
bella, bellissima!_" In their humble persons, all Tuscany was at her
feet.
Suddenly there fell a silence. Nobody moved or whispered. The door
of the Baptistry was opening.
The singer came out alone, still with that calm, uplifted smile; but
in her eyes as she gazed at us, those too expressive eyes of her
race, was the look of a dying Mimi, of a terrified Carmen at bay.
Behind her the others wept, even the Marchese, who blew his nose with
candor.
Seeing the unexpected audience, she bowed quite charmingly; she had
at all times and everywhere a most gracious stage presence. Then her
tragic gaze encountered mine.
"So, my dear! thou?" she remarked familiarly, although we had never
before exchanged a syllable; perhaps it was my sympathy she
recognized. "Well, it is over! The years have conquered. I am
done! The voice of Gina"--she made us a little cheery gesture of
despair--"is no more."
"Ah, ah! you break my heart!" sobbed the lady-secretary.
The priest, the verger, others about her were quick with disclaiming
protest. The coachman vociferated praise. Annette called upon her
God with tears to witness that never in life had she, she who spoke,
heard a high F attacked with greater purity.
"And what," shrilled Gina, turning upon them with sudden viciousness,
"what do you know about it? Hein? I ask you! Always you lie to me,
you flatter, you deceive! _Sapristi_! I trust none of you! Only
the echoes do not lie, flatter, deceive, they being straight from
Heaven. In the upper register I sharped--do you hear? I sharped!
What have you to say to that? And the _sostenuto_--my God, there was
no _sostenuto_! Add to these that in the middle register one had a
huskiness--ah, bah! It is I who hear! Myself who am the judge,
myself whom I trust! Not you--and you--and you!"
She snapped her fingers furiously under the nose of each of her
attendants in turn, including the priest.
But the storm passed as suddenly as it had arisen. She turned upon
the Marchese a rainbow smile; rather a wry attempt, but arch, and
kind, and singularly sweet. I recalled how she had fed his young
sons with sugarplums.
"For you, my friend," she murmured (and the smile took us all into
their confidence) "this is perhaps not altogether an occasion of
tragedy, eh?"
He tried visibly to utter a suitable disclaimer, to find some tactful
protestation of regret, but it was useless; sudden happiness shone
out from the man like a radiance. He could only bow over the hand
held out to him and salute it reverently. The audience cheered.
Then, tucking her arm beneath his, he led his capture proudly away
toward the flower-filled _carrozza_. It was a noble exit.
That evening we were aware of unusual activities afoot in the Hotel
of Neptune. Waiters scurried about, under a good deal of personal
direction; through a half-closed door into the grand salon, which is
used as a rule only for wedding parties or masked balls, we caught
glimpses of a table laid as for a banquet. I presently encountered
Annette, also scurrying, but able as always to pause for a brief
exchange of courtesies.
"My God, was it not pathetic?" she demanded of me, referring to the
morning's experience. "And to-night, she celebrates defeat with a
fête. What a gesture!"
I agreed with Annette. It was a gesture. "But she will have at
least the pleased support of the Marchese," I commented smilingly.
The maid smiled back at me, as one woman to another. "Ah, yes, that!
And also of Monsieur the Archbishop, who comes to the _festa_ in
person, since he is of the family Boncelli.--Ah, Mees, if I could but
show to you what a necklace Madame has received! Of pearls and
rubies, _par exemple_, as big as my two eyes!" She made them very
big indeed, to do justice to the princely offering. "And even
I"--she touched complacently a brooch at her throat--"have not been
neglected. It is the reward, one sees, of a sympathetic nature."
"How charming of him!" I exclaimed, delighted with such sentimental
forethought on the part of the Marchese. He must have had the gift
about him in readiness, since simple old Pisa would hardly be able to
provide at such short notice a necklace of pearls and rubies as large
as Annette's eyes.
"He has been carrying it _en poche_," she assured me, "for twenty
years! Touching, _n'est-ce pas_? And it is now quite _démodé_. But
we shall have the gems reset."
"So the engagement is to be announced already?" I asked. "The
nuptials will soon follow?"