THE OPERA OF CAMILLA
She was dressed like a noble damsel from the hands of Titian. An Italian
audience cannot but be critical in their first glance at a prima donna,
for they are asked to do homage to a queen who is to be taken on her
merits: all that they have heard and have been taught to expect of
her is compared swiftly with the observation of her appearance and
her manner. She is crucially examined to discover defects. There is
no boisterous loyalty at the outset. And as it was now evident that
Vittoria had chosen to impersonate a significant character, her
indications of method were jealously watched for a sign of inequality,
either in her, motion, or the force of her eyes. So silent a reception
might have seemed cruel in any other case; though in all cases the
candidate for laurels must, in common with the criminal, go through the
ordeal of justification. Men do not heartily bow their heads until
they have subjected the aspirant to some personal contest, and find
themselves overmatched. The senses, ready to become so slavish in
adulation and delight, are at the beginning more exacting than the
judgement, more imperious than the will. A figure in amber and pale blue
silk was seen, such as the great Venetian might have sketched from his
windows on a day when the Doge went forth to wed the Adriatic a superb
Italian head, with dark banded hair-braid, and dark strong eyes under
unabashed soft eyelids! She moved as, after long gazing at a painting
of a fair woman, we may have the vision of her moving from the frame.
It was an animated picture of ideal Italia. The sea of heads right up to
the highest walls fronted her glistening, and she was mute as moonrise.
A virgin who loosens a dove from her bosom does it with no greater
effort than Vittoria gave out her voice. The white bird flutters
rapidly; it circles and takes its flight. The voice seemed to be as
little the singer's own.
The theme was as follows:--Camilla has dreamed overnight that her lost
mother came to her bedside to bless her nuptials. Her mother was folded
in a black shroud, looking formless as death, like very death, save
that death sheds no tears. She wept, without change of voice, or mortal
shuddering, like one whose nature weeps: 'And with the forth-flowing of
her tears the knowledge of her features was revealed to me.' Behold the
Adige, the Mincio, Tiber, and the Po!--such great rivers were the tears
pouring from her eyes. She threw apart the shroud: her breasts and her
limbs were smooth and firm as those of an immortal Goddess: but breasts
and limbs showed the cruel handwriting of base men upon the body of
a martyred saint. The blood from those deep gashes sprang out at
intervals, mingling with her tears. She said:
'My child! were I a Goddess, my wounds would heal. Were I a Saint, I
should be in Paradise. I am no Goddess, and no Saint: yet I cannot
die. My wounds flow and my tears. My tears flow because of no fleshly
anguish: I pardon my enemies. My blood flows from my body, my tears from
my soul. They flow to wash out my shame. I have to expiate my soul's
shame by my body's shame. Oh! how shall I tell you what it is to walk
among my children unknown of them, though each day I bear the sun abroad
like my beating heart; each night the moon, like a heart with no blood
in it. Sun and moon they see, but not me! They know not their mother. I
cry to God. The answer of our God is this:--“Give to thy children one by
one to drink of thy mingled tears and blood:--then, if there is virtue
in them, they shall revive, thou shaft revive. If virtue is not in them,
they and thou shall continue prostrate, and the ox shall walk over you.”
From heaven's high altar, O Camilla, my child, this silver sacramental
cup was reached to me. Gather my tears in it, fill it with my blood, and
drink.'
The song had been massive in monotones, almost Gregorian in its severity
up to this point.
'I took the cup. I looked my mother in the face. I filled the cup from
the flowing of her tears, the flowing of her blood; and I drank!'
Vittoria sent this last phrase ringing out forcefully. From the
inveterate contralto of the interview, she rose to pure soprano in
describing her own action. 'And I drank,' was given on a descent of the
voice: the last note was in the minor key--it held the ear as if
more must follow: like a wail after a triumph of resolve. It was
a masterpiece of audacious dramatic musical genius addressed with
sagacious cunning and courage to the sympathizing audience present. The
supposed incompleteness kept them listening; the intentness sent that
last falling (as it were, broken) note travelling awakeningly through
their minds. It is the effect of the minor key to stir the hearts of
men with this particular suggestiveness. The house rose, Italians--and
Germans together. Genius, music, and enthusiasm break the line of
nationalities. A rain of nosegays fell about Vittoria; evvivas, bravas,
shouts--all the outcries of delirious men surrounded her. Men and women,
even among the hardened chorus, shook together and sobbed. 'Agostino!'
and 'Rocco!' were called; 'Vittoria!' 'Vittoria!' above all, with
increasing thunder, like a storm rushing down a valley, striking in
broad volume from rock to rock, humming remote, and bursting up again
in the face of the vale. Her name was sung over and over--'Vittoria!
Vittoria!' as if the mouths were enamoured of it.
'Evviva la Vittoria a d' Italia!' was sung out from the body of the
house.
An echo replied--'“Italia a il premio della VITTORIA!”' a well-known
saying gloriously adapted, gloriously rescued from disgrace.
But the object and source of the tremendous frenzy stood like one frozen
by the revelation of the magic the secret of which she has studiously
mastered. A nosegay, the last of the tributary shower, discharged from
a distance, fell at her feet. She gave it unconsciously preference over
the rest, and picked it up. A little paper was fixed in the centre.
She opened it with a mechanical hand, thinking there might be patriotic
orders enclosed for her. It was a cheque for one thousand guineas, drawn
upon an English banker by the hand of Antonio-Pericles Agriolopoulos;
freshly drawn; the ink was only half dried, showing signs of the
dictates of a furious impulse. This dash of solid prose, and its
convincing proof that her Art had been successful, restored Vittoria's
composure, though not her early statuesque simplicity. Rocco gave an
inquiring look to see if she would repeat the song. She shook her head
resolutely. Her opening of the paper in the bouquet had quieted the
general ebullition, and the expression of her wish being seen, the
chorus was permitted to usurp her place. Agostino paced up and down the
lobby, fearful that he had been guilty of leading her to anticlimax.
He met Antonio-Pericles, and told him so; adding (for now the mask had
been seen through, and was useless any further) that he had not had the
heart to put back that vision of Camilla's mother to a later scene, lest
an interruption should come which would altogether preclude its being
heard. Pericles affected disdain of any success which Vittoria had
yet achieved. 'Wait for Act the Third,' he said; but his irritable
anxiousness to hold intercourse with every one, patriot or critic,
German, English, or Italian, betrayed what agitation of exultation
coursed in his veins. 'Aha!' was his commencement of a greeting; 'was
Antonio-Pericles wrong when he told you that he had a prima donna for
you to amaze all Christendom, and whose notes were safe and firm as the
footing of the angels up and down Jacob's ladder, my friends? Aha!'
'Do you see that your uncle is signalling to you?' Countess Lena said to
Wilfrid. He answered like a man in a mist, and looked neither at her
nor at the General, who, in default of his obedience to gestures, came
good-humouredly to the box, bringing Captain Weisspriess with him.
'We 're assisting at a pretty show,' he said.
'I am in love with her voice,' said Countess Anna.
'Ay; if it were only a matter of voices, countess.'
'I think that these good people require a trouncing,' said Captain
Weisspriess.
'Lieutenant Pierson is not of your opinion,' Countess Anna remarked.
Hearing his own name, Wilfrid turned to them with a weariness well
acted, but insufficiently to a jealous observation, for his eyes were
quick under the carelessly-dropped eyelids, and ranged keenly over the
stage while they were affecting to assist his fluent tongue.
Countess Lena levelled her opera-glass at Carlo Ammiani, and then placed
the glass in her sister's hand. Wilfrid drank deep of bitterness. 'That
is Vittoria's lover,' he thought; 'the lover of the Emilia who once
loved me!'
General Pierson may have noticed this by-play: he said to his nephew in
the brief military tone: 'Go out; see that the whole regiment is handy
about the house; station a dozen men, with a serjeant, at each of the
backdoors, and remain below. I very much mistake, or we shall have to
make a capture of this little woman to-night.'
'How on earth,' he resumed, while Wilfrid rose savagely and went out
with his stiffest bow, 'this opera was permitted to appear, I can't
guess! A child could see through it. The stupidity of our civil
authorities passes my understanding--it's a miracle! We have stringent
orders not to take any initiative, or I would stop the Fraulein Camilla
from uttering another note.'
'If you did that, I should be angry with you, General,' said Countess
Anna.
'And I also think the Government cannot do wrong,' Countess Lena joined
in.
The General contented himself by saying: 'Well, we shall see.'
Countess Lena talked to Captain Weisspriess in an undertone, referring
to what she called his dispute with Carlo Ammiani. The captain was
extremely playful in rejoinders.
'You iron man!' she exclaimed.
'Man of steel would be the better phrase,' her sister whispered.
'It will be an assassination, if it happens.'
'No officer can bear with an open insult, Lena.'
'I shall not sit and see harm done to my old playmate, Anna.'
'Beware of betraying yourself for one who detests you.'
A grand duo between Montini and Vittoria silenced all converse. Camilla
tells Camillo of her dream. He pledges his oath to discover her mother,
if alive; if dead, to avenge her. Camilla says she believes her mother
is in the dungeons of Count Orso's castle. The duo tasked Vittoria's
execution of florid passages; it gave evidence of her sound artistic
powers.
'I was a fool,' thought Antonio-Pericles; 'I flung my bouquet with the
herd. I was a fool! I lost my head!'
He tapped angrily at the little ink-flask in his coat-pocket. The first
act, after scenes between false Camillo and Michiella, ends with
the marriage of Camillo and Camilla;--a quatuor composed of Montini,
Vittoria, Irma, and Lebruno. Michiella is in despair; Count Orso is
profoundly sonorous with paternity and devotion to the law. He has
restored to Camilla a portion of her mother's sequestrated estates.
A portion of the remainder will be handed over to her when he has
had experience of her husband's good behaviour. The rest he considers
legally his own by right of (Treaties), and by right of possession and
documents his sword. Yonder castle he must keep. It is the key of
all his other territories. Without it, his position will be insecure.
(Allusion to the Austrian argument that the plains of Lombardy are the
strategic defensive lines of the Alps.)
Agostino, pursued by his terror of anticlimax, ran from the sight of
Vittoria when she was called, after the fall of the curtain. He made his
way to Rocco Ricci (who had given his bow to the public from his
perch), and found the maestro drinking Asti to counteract his natural
excitement. Rocco told Agostino, that up to the last moment, neither he
nor any soul behind the scenes knew Vittoria would be able to appear,
except that she had sent a note to him with a pledge to be in readiness
for the call. Irma had come flying in late, enraged, and in disorder,
praying to take Camilla's part; but Montini refused to act with
the seconda donna as prima donna. They had commenced the opera in
uncertainty whether it could go on beyond the situation where Camilla
presents herself. 'I was prepared to throw up my baton,' said Rocco,
'and publicly to charge the Government with the rape of our prima donna.
Irma I was ready to replace. I could have filled that gap.' He spoke of
Vittoria's triumph. Agostino's face darkened. 'Ha!' said he, 'provided
we don't fall flat, like your Asti with the cork out. I should have
preferred an enthusiasm a trifle more progressive. The notion of
travelling backwards is upon me forcibly, after that tempest of
acclamation.'
'Or do you think that you have put your best poetry in the first Act?'
Rocco suggested with malice.
'Not a bit of it!' Agostino repudiated the idea very angrily, and puffed
and puffed. Yet he said, 'I should not be lamenting if the opera were
stopped at once.'
'No!' cried Rocco; 'let us have our one night. I bargain for that.
Medole has played us false, but we go on. We are victims already, my
Agostino.'
'But I do stipulate,' said Agostino, 'that my jewel is not to melt
herself in the cup to-night. I must see her. As it is, she is inevitably
down in the list for a week's or a month's incarceration.'
Antonio-Pericles had this, in his case, singular piece of delicacy, that
he refrained from the attempt to see Vittoria immediately after he
had flung his magnificent bouquet of treasure at her feet. In his
intoxication with the success which he had foreseen and cradled to its
apogee, he was now reckless of any consequences. He felt ready to take
patriotic Italy in his arms, provided that it would succeed as Vittoria
had done, and on the spot. Her singing of the severe phrases of the
opening chant, or hymn, had turned the man, and for a time had put a new
heart in him. The consolation was his also, that he had rewarded it the
most splendidly--as it were, in golden italics of praise; so that
her forgiveness of his disinterested endeavour to transplant her was
certain, and perhaps her future implicit obedience or allegiance bought.
Meeting General Pierson, the latter rallied him.
'Why, my fine Pericles, your scheme to get this girl out of the way
was capitally concerted. My only fear is that on another occasion the
Government will take another view of it and you.'
Pericles shrugged. 'The Gods, my dear General, decree. I did my best to
lay a case before them; that is all.'
'Ah, well! I am of opinion you will not lay many other cases before the
Gods who rule in Milan.'
'I have helped them to a good opera.'
'Are you aware that this opera consists entirely of political
allusions?'
General Pierson spoke offensively, as the urbane Austrian military
permitted themselves to do upon occasion when addressing the conquered
or civilians.
'To me,' returned Pericles, 'an opera--it is music. I know no more.'
'You are responsible for it,' said the General, harshly. 'It was taken
upon trust from you.'
'Brutal Austrians!' Pericles murmured. 'And you do not think much of her
voice, General?'
'Pretty fair, sir.'
'What wonder she does not care to open her throat to these swine!'
thought the changed Greek.
Vittoria's door was shut to Agostino. No voice within gave answer. He
tried the lock of the door, and departed. She sat in a stupor. It was
harder for her to make a second appearance than it was to make the
first, when the shameful suspicion cruelly attached to her had helped to
balance her steps with rebellious pride; and more, the great collected
wave of her ambitious years of girlhood had cast her forward to the
spot, as in a last effort for consummation. Now that she had won the
public voice (love, her heart called it) her eyes looked inward; she
meditated upon what she had to do, and coughed nervously. She frightened
herself with her coughing, and shivered at the prospect of again going
forward in the great nakedness of stagelights and thirsting eyes. And,
moreover, she was not strengthened by the character of the music and the
poetry of the second Act:--a knowledge of its somewhat inferior quality
may possibly have been at the root of Agostino's dread of an anticlimax.
The seconda donna had the chief part in it--notably an aria (Rocco had
given it to her in compassion) that suited Irma's pure shrieks and the
tragic skeleton she could be. Vittoria knew how low she was sinking when
she found her soul in the shallows of a sort of jealousy of Irma. For a
little space she lost all intimacy with herself; she looked at her face
in the glass and swallowed water, thinking that she had strained a dream
and confused her brain with it. The silence of her solitary room coming
upon the blaze of light the colour and clamour of the house, and the
strange remembrance of the recent impersonation of an ideal character,
smote her with the sense of her having fallen from a mighty eminence,
and that she lay in the dust. All those incense-breathing flowers heaped
on her table seemed poisonous, and reproached her as a delusion. She sat
crouching alone till her tirewomen called; horrible talkative things!
her own familiar maid Giacinta being the worst to bear with.
Now, Michiella, by making love to Leonardo, Camillo's associate,
discovers that Camillo is conspiring against her father. She utters to
Leonardo very pleasant promises indeed, if he will betray his friend.
Leonardo, a wavering baritono, complains that love should ask for
any return save in the coin of the empire of love. He is seduced, and
invokes a malediction upon his head should he accomplish what he has
sworn to perform. Camilla reposes perfect confidence in this wretch, and
brings her more doubtful husband to be of her mind.
Camillo and Camilla agree to wear the mask of a dissipated couple.
They throw their mansion open; dicing, betting, intriguing, revellings,
maskings, commence. Michiella is courted ardently by Camillo; Camilla
trifles with Leonardo and with Count Orso alternately. Jealous again
of Camilla, Michiella warns and threatens Leonardo; but she becomes
Camillo's dupe, partly from returning love, partly from desire for
vengeance on her rival. Camilla persuades Orso to discard Michiella. The
infatuated count waxes as the personification of portentous burlesque;
he is having everything his own way. The acting throughout--owing to
the real gravity of the vast basso Lebruno's burlesque, and Vittoria's
archness--was that of high comedy with a lurid background. Vittoria
showed an enchanting spirit of humour. She sang one bewitching barcarole
that set the house in rocking motion. There was such melancholy in her
heart that she cast herself into all the flippancy with abandonment.
The Act was weak in too distinctly revealing the finger of the poetic
political squib at a point here and there. The temptation to do it of
an Agostino, who had no other outlet, had been irresistible, and he sat
moaning over his artistic depravity, now that it stared him in the face.
Applause scarcely consoled him, and it was with humiliation of mind that
he acknowledged his debt to the music and the singers, and how little
they owed to him.
Now Camillo is pleased to receive the ardent passion of his wife, and
the masking suits his taste, but it is the vice of his character that
he cannot act to any degree subordinately in concert; he insists upon
positive headship!--(allusion to an Italian weakness for sovereignties;
it passed unobserved, and chuckled bitterly over his excess of
subtlety). Camillo cannot leave the scheming to her. He pursues
Michiella to subdue her with blandishments. Reproaches cease upon her
part. There is a duo between them. They exchange the silver keys, which
express absolute intimacy, and give mutual freedom of access. Camillo
can now secrete his followers in the castle; Michiella can enter
Camilla's blue-room, and ravage her caskets for treasonable
correspondence. Artfully she bids him reflect on what she is forfeiting
for him; and so helps him to put aside the thought of that which he also
may be imperilling.
Irma's shrill crescendos and octave-leaps, assisted by her peculiar
attitudes of strangulation, came out well in this scene. The murmurs
concerning the sour privileges to be granted by a Lazzeruola were
inaudible. But there has been a witness to the stipulation. The
ever-shifting baritono, from behind a pillar, has joined in with an
aside phrase here and there. Leonardo discovers that his fealty to
Camilla is reviving. He determines to watch over her. Camillo now tosses
a perfumed handkerchief under his nose, and inhales the coxcombical
incense of the idea that he will do all without Camilla's aid, to
surprise her; thereby teaching her to know him to be somewhat a hero.
She has played her part so thoroughly that he can choose to fancy her
a giddy person; he remarks upon the frequent instances of girls who in
their girlhood were wild dreamers becoming after marriage wild wives.
His followers assemble, that he may take advantage of the exchanged
key of silver. He is moved to seek one embrace of Camilla before the
conflict:--she is beautiful! There was never such beauty as hers! He
goes to her in the fittest preparation for the pangs of jealousy. But he
has not been foremost in practising the uses of silver keys. Michiella,
having first arranged with her father to be before Camillo's doors at a
certain hour with men-at-arms, is in Camilla's private chamber, with her
hand upon a pregnant box of ebony wood, when she is startled by a noise,
and slips into concealment. Leonardo bursts through the casement window.
Camilla then appears. Leonardo stretches the tips of his fingers out to
her; on his knees confesses his guilt and warns her. Camillo comes in.
Thrusting herself before him, Michiella points to the stricken couple
'See! it is to show you this that I am here.' Behold occasion for a
grand quatuor!
While confessing his guilt to Camilla, Leonardo has excused it by an
emphatic delineation of Michiella's magic sway over him. (Leonardo, in
fact, is your small modern Italian Machiavelli, overmatched in cunning,
for the reason that he is always at a last moment the victim of his
poor bit of heart or honesty: he is devoid of the inspiration of great
patriotic aims.) If Michiella (Austrian intrigue) has any love, it is
for such a tool. She cannot afford to lose him. She pleads for him; and,
as Camilla is silent on his account, the cynical magnanimity of Camillo
is predisposed to spare a fangless snake. Michiella withdraws him from
the naked sword to the back of the stage. The terrible repudiation scene
ensues, in which Camillo casts off his wife. If it was a puzzle to one
Italian half of the audience, the other comprehended it perfectly, and
with rapture. It was thus that YOUNG ITALY had too often been treated
by the compromising, merely discontented, dallying aristocracy. Camilla
cries to him, 'Have faith in me! have faith in me! have faith in me!'
That is the sole answer to his accusations, his threats of eternal
loathing, and generally blustering sublimities. She cannot defend
herself; she only knows her innocence. He is inexorable, being the
guilty one of the two. Turning from him with crossed arms, Camilla
sings:
'Mother! it is my fate that I should know Thy miseries, and in thy
footprints go. Grief treads the starry places of the earth: In thy long
track I feel who gave me birth. I am alone; a wife without a lord; My
home is with the stranger--home abhorr'd!--But that I trust to meet thy
spirit there. Mother of Sorrows! joy thou canst not share: So let me
wander in among the tombs, Among the cypresses and the withered blooms.
Thy soul is with dead suns: there let me be; A silent thing that shares
thy veil with thee.'
The wonderful viol-like trembling of the contralto tones thrilled
through the house. It was the highest homage to Vittoria that no longer
any shouts arose nothing but a prolonged murmur, as when one tells
another a tale of deep emotion, and all exclamations, all ulterior
thoughts, all gathered tenderness of sensibility, are reserved for the
close, are seen heaping for the close, like waters above a dam.
The flattery of beholding a great assembly of human creatures bound
glittering in wizard subservience to the voice of one soul, belongs to
the artist, and is the cantatrice's glory, pre-eminent over whatever
poor glory this world gives. She felt it, but she felt it as something
apart. Within her was the struggle of Italy calling to Italy: Italy's
shame, her sadness, her tortures, her quenchless hope, and the view of
Freedom. It sent her blood about her body in rebellious volumes. Once it
completely strangled her notes. She dropped the ball of her chin in her
throat; paused without ceremony; and recovered herself. Vittoria had too
severe an artistic instinct to court reality; and as much as she could
she from that moment corrected the underlinings of Agostino's libretto.
On the other hand, Irma fell into all his traps, and painted her
Austrian heart with a prodigal waste of colour and frank energy:
'Now Leonardo is my tool:
Camilla is my slave:
And she I hate goes forth to cool
Her rage beyond the wave.
Joy! joy!
Paid am I in full coin for my caressing;
I take, but give nought, ere the priestly blessing.'
A subtle distinction. She insists upon her reverence for the priestly
(papistical) blessing, while she confides her determination to have
it dispensed with in Camilla's case. Irma's known sympathies with the
Austrian uniform seasoned the ludicrousness of many of the double-edged
verses which she sang or declaimed in recitative. The irony of
applauding her vehemently was irresistible.
Camilla is charged with conspiracy, and proved guilty by her own
admission.
The Act ends with the entry of Count Orso and his force; conspirators
overawed; Camilla repudiated; Count Orso imperially just; Leonardo
chagrined; Camillo pardoned; Michiella triumphant. Camillo sacrifices
his wife for safety. He holds her estates; and therefore Count Orso,
whose respect for law causes him to have a keen eye for matrimonial
alliances, is now paternally willing, and even anxious to bestow
Michiella upon him when the Pontifical divorce can be obtained; so that
the long-coveted fruitful acres may be in the family. The chorus sings
a song of praise to Hymen, the 'builder of great Houses.' Camilla goes
forth into exile. The word was not spoken, but the mention of 'bread of
strangers, strange faces, cold climes,' said sufficient.
'It is a question whether we ought to sit still and see a firebrand
flashed in our faces,' General Pierson remarked as the curtain fell. He
was talking to Major de Pyrmont outside the Duchess of Graatli's box.
Two General officers joined them, and presently Count Serabiglione, with
his courtly semi-ironical smile, on whom they straightway turned their
backs. The insult was happily unseen, and the count caressed his shaven
chin and smiled himself onward. The point for the officers to decide
was, whether they dared offend an enthusiastic house--the fiery core
of the population of Milan--by putting a stop to the opera before worse
should come.
Their own views were entirely military; but they were paralyzed by the
recent pseudo-liberalistic despatches from Vienna; and agreed, with
some malice in their shrugs, that the odium might as well be left on the
shoulders of the bureau which had examined the libretto. In fact, they
saw that there would be rank peril in attempting to arrest the course of
things within the walls of the house.
'The temper this people is changeing oddly,' said General Pierson. Major
de Pyrmont listened awhile to what they had to say, and returned to the
duchess. Amalia wrote these lines to Laura:--'If she sings that song she
is to be seized on the wings of the stage. I order my carriage to be in
readiness to take her whither she should have gone last night. Do you
contrive only her escape from the house. Georges de P. will aid you. I
adore the naughty rebel!'
Major de Pyrmont delivered the missive at Laura's box. He went down to
the duchess's chasseur, and gave him certain commands and money for a
journey. Looking about, he beheld Wilfrid, who implored him to take his
place for two minutes. De Pyrmont laughed. 'She is superb, my friend.
Come up with me. I am going behind the scenes. The unfortunate
impresario is a ruined man; let us both condole with him. It is possible
that he has children, and children like bread.'
Wilfrid was linking his arm to De Pyrmont's, when, with a vivid
recollection of old times, he glanced at his uniform with Vittoria's
eyes. 'She would spit at me!' he muttered, and dropped behind.
Up in her room Vittoria held council with Rocco, Agostino, and the
impresario, Salvolo, who was partly their dupe. Salvolo had laid a
freshly-written injunction from General Pierson before her, bidding
him to exclude the chief solo parts from the Third Act, and to bring
it speedily to a termination. His case was, that he had been ready
to forfeit much if a rising followed; but that simply to beard the
authorities was madness. He stated his case by no means as a pleader,
although the impression made on him by the prima donna's success caused
his urgency to be civil.
'Strike out what you please,' said Vittoria.
Agostino smote her with a forefinger. 'Rogue! you deserve an imperial
crown. You have been educated for monarchy. You are ready enough to
dispense with what you don't care for, and what is not your own.'
Much of the time was lost by Agostino's dispute with Salvolo. They
haggled and wrangled laughingly over this and that printed aria, but
it was a deplorable deception of the unhappy man; and with Vittoria's
stronger resolve to sing the incendiary song, the more necessary it was
for her to have her soul clear of deceit. She said, 'Signor Salvolo,
you have been very kind to me, and I would do nothing to hurt your
interests. I suppose you must suffer for being an Italian, like the rest
of us. The song I mean to sing is not written or printed. What is in
the book cannot harm you, for the censorship has passed it; and surely
I alone am responsible for singing what is not in the book--I and the
maestro. He supports me. We have both taken precautions' (she smiled)
'to secure our property. If you are despoiled, we will share with you.
And believe, oh! in God's name, believe that you will not suffer to no
purpose!'
Salvolo started from her in a horror of amazement. He declared that he
had been miserably deceived and entrapped. He threatened to send the
company to their homes forthwith. 'Dare to!' said Agostino; and to judge
by the temper of the house, it was only too certain, that if he did so,
La Scala would be a wrecked tenement in the eye of morning. But Agostino
backed his entreaty to her to abjure that song; Rocco gave way, and
half shyly requested her to think of prudence. She remembered Laura, and
Carlo, and her poor little frightened foreign mother. Her intense
ideal conception of her duty sank and danced within her brain as the
pilot-star dances on the bows of a tossing vessel. All were against her,
as the tempest is against the ship. Even light above (by which I would
image that which she could appeal to pleading in behalf of the wisdom
of her obstinate will) was dyed black in the sweeping obscuration; she
failed to recollect a sentence that was to be said to vindicate her
settled course. Her sole idea was her holding her country by an unseen
thread, and of the everlasting welfare of Italy being jeopardized if she
relaxed her hold. Simple obstinacy of will sustained her.
You mariners batten down the hatchways when the heavens are dark and
seas are angry. Vittoria, with the same faith in her instinct, shut the
avenues to her senses--would see nothing, hear nothing. The impresario's
figure of despair touched her later. Giacinta drove him forth in the act
of smiting his forehead with both hands. She did the same for Agostino
and Rocco, who were not demonstrative.
They knew that by this time the agents of the Government were in all
probability ransacking their rooms, and confiscating their goods.
'Is your piano hired?' quoth the former.
'No,' said the latter, 'are your slippers?'
They went their separate ways, laughing.