ROME GOES TO THE OPERA
On the evening of the first court ball, the Sanseveros gave a small
dinner, after which they went to the opera. The guests were the Count
and Countess Olisco, Count Tornik, Don Cesare Carpazzi, and Prince
Minotti. Don Cesare Carpazzi, a thin swarthy youth, sat just across the
corner of the table from Nina. Although his appearance was one of great
neatness, it was all too evident, if one observed with good eyes, that
the edges of his shirt had been trimmed with the scissors until the hem
narrowed close to the line of stitching; and his evening clothes in a
strong light would have revealed not only the fatal gloss of long use,
but also careful darning. The old saying that "Clothes make the man" was
refuted in his case, however, as his arrogance was proclaimed in every
gesture.
Sitting next to him was the Countess Olisco, the Russian whom Nina had
noted and admired at her aunt's ball. As there were but nine at dinner,
and the conversation was general, Nina had time to observe closely her
appearance. She had the broad Russian brow, the Egyptian eyes and
unbroken bridge of the nose. She was the most slender woman imaginable,
and her slenderness was exaggerated by the fashion of wearing her hair
piled up so high and so far forward that at a distance it might be taken
for a small black fur toque tipped over her nose. She rarely wore
colors, but to-night, because of the etiquette against wearing black at
court, her long-trained dress was of sapphire blue velvet, as severe and
as clinging as possible.
Nina divined better than she knew, when she put the little Russian and
Carpazzi in the same category. Fundamentally they were much the same,
but whereas he was always bursting into flame, the contessa suggested a
well banked fire that burned continually, but within destroyed itself
rather than others. Thin, white, and self-consuming, she was like the
small Russian cigarettes that were never out of her lips. Fragile as she
looked, she had a will that brooked no obstacle, an energy that knew no
fatigue.
Aside from her appearance, the story that Giovanni had related of the
contessa's marriage was in itself enough to arouse the interest of any
girl alive to romance. According to him, she was the daughter of a
Russian nobleman of great family and wealth. The Count Olisco (a
mild-eyed Italian boy, he looked) had been attached to the legation at
St. Petersburg. Zoya was only sixteen years old when she announced her
intention of marrying him. Her father, furious that the Italian had
dared approach his daughter, demanded his recall, whereupon she told him
the astonishing news that Olisco had never, to her knowledge, even seen
her. But she declared that if her father did not marry her to him, she
would kill herself.
She did take poison but, being saved by the doctors, who discovered it
through her maid, she sent the same maid to tell the Count Olisco the
whole story. The romance of her act, coupled with her beauty and her
birth, naturally so flattered the young Italian that he offered himself
as a suitor, and, her father relenting, they were married.
Nina was left for some time to her own thoughts, as her Italian (not
particularly fluent at best) was altogether lacking in idiom, and she
missed the point of most that was said. In the first lull, the Count
Olisco asked her the usual question put to every stranger, "How do you
like Rome?"
The Countess Olisco, like an echo, caught and repeated her husband's
inquiry, "Ah, and do you like Rome?"
And then Carpazzi hoped she liked Rome--and this very harmless subject
was tossed gently back and forth, until Prince Minotti gave it an
unexpectedly violent fling by remarking, "I suppose Signorina, that you
have been impressed"--he held the pause with evident satisfaction--"with
the great history of the Carpazzi, without which there would be no
Rome!"
All at once the young man in the threadbare coat became like a live
wire! His hair, which already was _en brosse_, seemed to rise still
higher on his head, his thin lips quivered, and his hands worked in a
complete language of their own. He put up an immediate barrier with his
palms held rigidly outward. All the table stopped to look, and to
listen.
"Does a Principe Minotti"--he pronounced the word "_Principe_" with a
sneering curl of the lips--"dare to criticize a Carpazzi?" He threw back
his head with a jerk.
"What is he?" whispered Nina to Tornik, who was sitting next her. "Is he
a duke?"
"A Don, that is all, I believe."
Softly as the question was put and answered, Carpazzi heard. Showing
none of the fury of a moment before he spoke suavely, though still with
arrogance.
"Signorina is a stranger in Rome; the Count Tornik also is a foreigner,
which excuses an ignorance that would be unpardonable in an Italian."
Tornik at that moment pulled his mustache, looking at it down the length
of his nose. It was impossible to tell whether the movement hid
annoyance or amusement. Nina was keen with curiosity.
"Of course," Nina said sweetly, eager to soothe his over-sensitive
pride, "I have heard of the Carpazzi, but I do not know what is the
title of your house. I asked Count Tornik whether you were a duke."
"I am Cesare di Carpazzi!" He said it as though he had announced that he
was the Emperor of China.
"The Carpazzi are of the oldest nobility," Giovanni interposed. "Such a
name is in itself higher than a title."
Don Cesare bowed to Don Giovanni as though to say, "You see! thus it
is!"
The subject would have simmered down, had not Tornik at this point set
it boiling, by saying in an undertone to Nina, "Why all this fuss? It is
stupid, don't you think?"
He spoke in French, carelessly articulated, but the sharp ears of
Carpazzi overheard.
"Why all this fuss!" he repeated. "It is insupportable that an upstart
of 'nobility' styled p-r-ince"--he snarled the word--"a title that was
_bought_ with a tumbledown estate, _dares_ to speak lightly the great
name of the Carpazzi, a name that is higher than that of the reigning
family."
His flexible fingers flashed and grew stiff by turns. Nina had seen a
good deal of gesticulating since she had come to Rome; she had even been
told that the different expressions of the hand had meanings quite as
distinct as smiles or frowns or spoken words, and Carpazzi's fingers
certainly looked insulting, as with each snap he also snapped his lips.
"You know whereof I speak, Alessandro and Giovanni--not even the
Sansevero have the lineage of the Carpazzi!"
"Certainly, certainly, my friend," answered Giovanni. "No one is
disputing the fact with you."
"But I should think," ventured Nina, her velvety eyes looking
wonderingly into his flashing black ones, "that you would accept a
title, it would make it so much simpler--especially among strangers who
do not know the family history. A duke is a duke and a prince for
instance----"
Up went his hand, rigid, palm outward, and at right angles to his wrist,
"There you are wrong. A duke or a prince may be a parvenu. For me to
accept a title--Non! It would mean that the name of _Carpazzi_,"--he
lingered on the pronunciation--"could be improved! The name of Minotti,
for instance, what does it say? Nothing! It is the name of a peasant. It
may be dressed up to masquerade as noble, if it has 'Principe' pushed
along before it. But it could not deceive a Roman. It is not the
'Principe' before Sansevero that gives it renown. Don Giovanni Sansevero
is a greater title than the Marchese Di Valdo, by which Giovanni is
generally known. Yet Di Valdo is a good name, too, let me tell you."
The Princess Sansevero kept Minotti's attention as much as possible, so
that it might appear that Carpazzi's arraignment had not been heard. All
that Carpazzi said was perfectly true. There was little therefore that
Minotti could have answered. He was a man of plebeian origin. His
father, a rich speculator, had bought a piece of property and assumed
the title that went with it. To a Roman the name Carpazzi was a great
deal higher than that of any number of dukes and princes.
The question of "Good Taste," however, was another matter and the
princess changed the subject by asking:
"Does any one know what the opera is to-night?"
The Contessa Olisco announced: "La Traviata." "They are to have a
special scene in the third act," she said, "to introduce a new dance of
Favorita's." She did not look at Giovanni, and yet she seemed to be
aiming her remarks at him. To Nina it all meant nothing. Once or twice
she had heard the name of the celebrated dancer, but it merely brushed
through her perceptions like other fleeting suggestions; nothing ever
had brought it to a full stop.
The talk turned on other topics, and as the meal was very short, only
five courses, the princess, the contessa, and Nina soon withdrew to
another room. The conversation there, as it happened, came back to the
subject of Carpazzi.
Zoya Olisco lit her cigarette and spoke with it pasted on her lower lip.
She smoked like this continually, and never touched the cigarette except
to light it and put a new one in its place.
"Though I see what he means," she said, "I should, were I in his place,
claim a title! They need not take a new one. My husband told me that the
Carpazzi were of the genuine optimates of the Roman Duchy."
"I think Cesare regrets in his heart," said the Princess Sansevero,
"that his ancestors did not accept one, but I agree with him now."
She stirred her coffee slowly and then added, "I am fond of the boy, but
I do not think I shall have him to dinner soon again. He is too
uncontrolled."
The contessa agreed. And then, with her eyes half shut to avoid the
smoke of her cigarette, she stared with fixed curiosity at Nina.
"Do you find people here like those in America?" she asked.
"Yes, some are quite like Americans," Nina answered, and added frankly,
"but you at least are altogether different from any one I have ever
seen!"
"Really, am I?" The contessa raised her eyebrows and laughed. "I know of
what you are thinking!" She said it with a deliciously impulsive candor.
"You are thinking of my marriage. Yes, it is true! The instant my father
said 'no,' I took poison. It was the only way. Had fate willed it, I
would have died. But fate willed that I should be--just married." She
laughed again.
Nina glanced at her aunt, whose answering smile said clearly, "I told
you she was like this."
The contessa lit another cigarette--everything she said and did seemed
incongruous with her appearance, she was so fragile and so young. Nina
became more and more fascinated as she watched her.
"But supposing that, after meeting him, you had not liked him?" she
asked.
"That is impossible. I know always if I like people. I like people at
sight--or I detest them! For instance, I detest Donna Francesca Dobini.
She is a beauty, I know. She has charming manners; so has a cat. She is
all soft sweetness. Ugh! I hate her!--But I like you."
Nina was delighted, but she could not help being amused. "You don't know
me in the least," she laughed. "I may be a perfectly horrid person."
The contessa shrugged her shoulders. "That is nothing to me. No doubt I
adore some very horrid persons!" Then impetuously she ran her arm
through Nina's as they walked through the long row of rooms to the one
where their wraps were. "I _like_ you!" she repeated; "that is all there
is to it!"
In the hall they were joined by the men, and started for the opera.
Here, Nina had an unusual opportunity to see Roman Society, as the house
that night was brilliant with the people who were going afterwards to
the Court Ball. Donna Francesca Dobini, a celebrated beauty, was rather
affectedly draped in a tulle arrangement around her shoulders. The
Contessa Olisco, who for the time being was forced to do without her
cigarette, said to Nina:
"Look at her, there she is! She is 'going off,' so that she has to wrap
tulle about her old neck to hide the wrinkles."
She moved the column of her young throat with conscious triumph as she
spoke. A moment later, as though Nina would understand, she whispered:
"There is the Potensi! No! In the box opposite. She has on a dress of
purple velvet. Sitting very straight, and quantities of diamonds."
Nina put up her opera glass and encountered an insolent stare, as
though the Contessa Potensi were purposely disdainful of the American
girl.
"She is the same one with whom Don Giovanni danced opposite in the
quadrille! Heavens! but she is a disagreeable person!"
"She has reason for looking disagreeable," announced the Contessa Zoya
with a meaning laugh; but more she would not say.
Giovanni leaned over Nina's chair. "Do you find the Romans attractive?
How does our opera compare with that of New York?"
"The house seems made of cardboard," Nina answered. "I never thought our
opera houses especially wonderful----"
"No?" Giovanni rallied her. "Is it possible that you have anything in
America that is not the most wonderful in the world! I am sure you will
say your opera house is bigger! And richer! and more comfortable! Yes?
Of course it is!" He laughed. "My apple is bigger than your apple. My
doll is bigger than your doll! What children you are, you Americans!"
"If we are children," retorted Nina, piqued by his laughter, "we must be
granted the advantages of youth!"
With a sudden gravity, but none the less mockingly, Giovanni besought
her for enlightenment.
"We gain in enthusiasm, energy, and honesty," she announced
sententiously. "A country and a people never attain perfection of finish
until they have begun to grow decadent. I'd rather have my doll and my
big apple than sit, like an old cynic, in the corner, watching the
children play!"
She was immensely pleased with this speech,--mentally she quite preened
herself. Giovanni looked amused, but the Contessa Potensi caught his
glance from across the house, and his smile faded as he bowed. Nina, who
had good eyes, saw a complete change in her face as she returned his
salutation.
"Do you like that woman?"
"She is one of the beauties of Rome," he said evasively.
"No, but do you like her?" Nina could not herself have told why she was
so insistent.
"She is an old friend of mine," he said lightly; then changed the
subject. "Do you follow the hounds, Miss Randolph?"
"At home, yes." But she came back to the former topic. "Does she ride
very well, the Contessa Potensi?"
"Wonderfully." This time he answered her easily. "But I am sure you ride
well, too. Any one who dances as you do, must also be a horsewoman."
There was something in Giovanni's manner that excited suspicion, but she
did not know of what. She half wondered if there had been a love affair
between him and the Contessa. Maybe he had wanted to marry her and she
had accepted Potensi instead. She wondered if Giovanni still cared; and
for a while her sympathy was quite aroused.
The curtain went up and every one stopped talking. At the beginning of
the _entr'acte_ Giovanni left the box, and Count Tornik took his chair.
He was a strange man, but Nina was beginning to like him.
Notwithstanding his brusque indifference, he had a charm that he could
exert when he chose. Giovanni's speeches were no more flattering than
Tornik's lapses from boredom.
As a matter of fact, in spite of his assumed bad manners, the social
instinct was so strong in him that, just as a vulgar person shows his
origin in every unguarded moment or unexpected situation, Tornik's good
breeding was constantly revealed. And in appearance, he was an
attractive contrast to the Italians, tall, broad-shouldered, very blond,
and high cheekboned; he might have been taken for an Englishman.
Presently her Majesty, the Dowager Queen, appeared in the royal box, and
every one in the audience arose.
"Shall we see both queens to-night at the ball?" Nina asked the Princess
Sansevero.
"No; only Queen Elena. The Queen Mother has never been present at a ball
since King Umberto's tragic death."
"I wish this evening were over," said Nina, with a half-frightened sigh.
The Contessa Olisco, who had caught the remark and the sigh, asked
sympathetically, "But why?"
"I was nervous enough over going alone to the presentation the other
afternoon, but to go to a ball is much worse."
"But you won't be alone. We shall be there! You may have your endurance
put to the test, though. Are you very strong?"
Nina laughed. "You mean, have I the strength to stand indefinitely
without dropping to the floor?"
"Ah! you know, then, how it is. Still--if it is hard for us, think what
it must be for their Majesties. To-night, for instance, the King does
not once sit down!"
Nina opened her eyes wide. "I thought the King and Queen sat on their
throne. But then--I had an idea the presentation would be like that,
too--and that I should have to courtesy all across a room, and back out
again."
The Contessa Zoya seemed to be occupied with a reminiscence that amused
her. "If you have a special audience, you do, or if you go to take tea.
We had a private audience yesterday with Queen Margherita and--I had on
a long train--and clinging. Of course, entering the room is not hard--I
made my three reverences very nicely, very gracefully, I thought,--one
at the door, one half-way across the room, and one directly before the
Queen, as I kissed her hand. But when the audience was over, the
distance between where her Majesty sat and the door of exit--my dear, it
seemed leagues! One must back all the way and make three deep
courtesies! The first was simple, the second, half-way across the room,
was difficult. I was already standing on nearly a meter of train, and
when I got to the door--well, I just walked all the way up the back of
my dress, lost my balance and _fell out_!"
Nina laughed at the picture, but was glad the presentation had not been
like that.
"When you go to take tea with the Queen it is difficult, too," Zoya,
having begun to explain, went on with all the details that came to mind.
"Since two years Queen Elena has given 'tea parties' of about thirty or
forty people. Her Majesty talks to every one separately, or in very
small groups, while tea and cake and chocolate and iced drinks are
served by the ladies in waiting--there are never any servants present.
It is of course charming, and the Queen puts every one at ease, but
there is always a feeling that you may do something dreadful--such as
drop a spoon or have your mouth full just at the moment when her Majesty
addresses a remark to you. At the Queen Mother's Court things are more
formal--more ceremonious. I always feel timid before I go. And yet no
sovereign could be more gracious, and her memory is extraordinary. She
forgets nothing. Yesterday she asked me how the baby was. She knew his
age, even his name and all about him. She asked me if he had recovered
from the bronchitis he was subject to. Think of it!"
Nina looked long at the royal box, and could well believe the contessa's
account. Her Majesty was talking to the Marchesa Valdeste.
Of all the older ladies to whom she had been presented, Nina liked the
marchesa best. Her face had the sweet expression that can come only from
genuine kindness and innate dignity. At a short distance from the royal
box Don Cesare Carpazzi was talking to a young girl. Don Cesare's
expression was for the moment transfigured; instead of arrogance, it
suggested rather humility; both he and the young girl seemed deeply
engrossed.
Tornik told Nina that she was Donna Cecilia Potensi, the little
sister-in-law of the contessa in the box opposite. He also added that
Carpazzi was supposed to be in love with her, and she with him, but they
had not a lira to marry on. There were no poorer families in Italy than
the Carpazzis and the Potensis.
Certainly there was nothing in the appearance of the young girl to
indicate wealth, but her plain white dress with a bunch of flowers at
her belt, and her hair as simply arranged as possible, only increased
her Madonna-like beauty.
Nina was enchanted with her, and instinctively compared her appearance
with that of the sister-in-law, glittering with diamonds. "The Contessa
Potensi was a rich girl in her own right, I suppose," Nina remarked
aloud.
With a suspicion of awkwardness Tornik glanced at Giovanni, who had
returned to the box. The latter began to screw up his mustache as he
replied in Tornik's stead. "The Contessa Potensi inherited some very
good jewels from her mother's family, I am told."
"Her mother was an Austrian, a cousin of mine," Tornik drawled. "I never
heard of that branch of the family's having anything but stubble lands
and debts. However, it is evident she has got the jewels! I felicitate
her on her valuable possessions. _Elle a de la chance!_" He shrugged his
shoulders. Tornik's detached and impersonal manner gave no effect of
insult, and Giovanni, beyond looking annoyed, made no further remark.
But the Princess Sansevero interposed:
"Maria Potensi has a passion for jewels, as a child might have for toys,
and she accepts them in the same way. She tells every one about it quite
frankly; in that lies the proof of her innocence."
But the Contessa Zoya showed neither sympathy nor credulity, and there
was no misinterpreting her meaning as she said:
"It is true, Princess, you know the Potensi well, and I only
slightly--but if my husband offered a diamond ornament----"
"He would never give her another! Is that it?" put in Tornik.
"No--nor any one!" The intensity of her tone alarmed Nina, who was
beginning to feel confused by the succession of violent impressions.
Scorpa, Giovanni, Carpazzi, Zoya Olisco, all struck such strident notes
that their vibrations jangled.
Another act and _entr'acte_ passed. Nina saw Giovanni enter the box of
the Contessa Potensi. In contrast to her greeting across the house, she
seemed now scarcely to speak to him. He talked to her companion, the
Princess Malio, who bobbed her head and prattled at a great rate; but as
he left the box Nina saw him lean toward the Contessa Potensi as though
saying something in an undertone. She answered rapidly, behind her fan.
Giovanni inclined his head and left.
This small incident made a greater impression on Nina than its
importance warranted. And the Contessa Potensi occupied her thoughts far
more than the various men who had come into the box, and who seemed
little more than so many varieties of faces and shirt-fronts. She
noticed that many of the older men wore Father Abraham beards and
clothes several sizes too big. On account of the Court Ball those who
had orders wore them, frequently so carelessly pinned to their coats
that the decorations seemed likely to fall off. The Marchese Valdeste--a
really imposing man--had two huge ones dangling from the flapping lapel
of his coat, and a sash with a bow on the hip that would put any man's
dignity to a supreme test.
"The ballet is very important to-night," Nina heard the marchese saying
to the Princess Sansevero. "La Favorita is to appear in the Birth of
Venus. She does another dance first--a Spanish one, I think."
As he spoke, the ballet music had already begun, and the Spanish
_coryphées_ were twisting and bowing, and straightening their spines as
they danced to the beat of their castanettes. Then they moved aside for
the _ballerina_.
It may have been intended as a Spanish dance, or Eastern, or gypsy--but
it was more likely a dance of La Favorita's own imagination. She
appeared clad in a thin slip of transparent and jetted gauze. Upon her
feet were socks and ballet slippers of black satin. A black mask covered
the upper part of her face, and her black hair was drawn high and held
with a diamond bracelet; she wore a diamond collar, long diamond
earrings, and the gauze of her upper garment--which could hardly be
called a bodice--was held on one shoulder with a band of diamonds. For
the space of a second she faced the audience, standing still and rigid;
then, with a quiver, the rigidity was shattered! A serpent's coiling was
not more swift than the movement of her dazzling, glittering form, which
twirled and turned and bent, while the twinkling rapidity of her steps
was faster than the eye could follow. A twirl, another twirl, a
flash--and she was gone.
[Illustration: "FOR THE SPACE OF A SECOND SHE FACED THE AUDIENCE,
STANDING STILL AND RIGID"]
The _coryphées_, who had seemingly danced well before, were now so
awkward by comparison that Nina and Tornik laughed aloud.
"They look like cows," commented Tornik.
"Or nailed to the ground," Nina rejoined. She leaned forward, eager for
Favorita's reappearance.
To make a background for the second dance, the stage hands had moved in
folding wings or screens of sea green. The calciums had gradually been
turning to the blue of moonlight, and now, at the back of the stage,
Venus arose, veiled in a mist of foam.
Seeming scarcely to touch her feet to the ground, the dancer was a puff
of the foam itself, a living fragment of green and white spray. She
caught her arms full of the sea-colored gauze, like a great billow above
her head, and then with a swirl she bent her body and drew the
diaphanous film out sideways, like a wave that had run up on the sands.
Drawing it together again, she seemed to produce another breaker.
So perfectly was the fabric handled that it seemed exactly like the
spray of the sea, which, in its freshness, clung to her, and at the
last, by a wonderful illusion, she gave the appearance of having gone
under the waves.
For several seconds the house remained absolutely hushed, and in that
moment Nina found herself vaguely groping through a confusion of
ecstatic, yet slightly shocked, sensations. She wondered whether La
Favorita had really nothing on except a number of yards of tulle which
she held in her hands.
But the verdict of the audience was voiced by a torrent of bravos and
handclappings that thundered until La Favorita, having thrown a long
mantle about her, came out into the glare of the footlights.
She bowed and kissed her hands, her smiles of acknowledgment sweeping
the house from left to right, but at the box of the Sanseveros her
smile faded, and she threw back her head with a movement of triumph.
Nina was startled into fancying that she looked long, directly, and
particularly at her.