the great maestro sat at the piano, a small, square instrument. upon it were piles of music, a bottle of rhine wine, half emptied, a cup of black coffee, a plate of sliced garlic sausage, and a roll of black bread, peppered outside with aniseed. a bottle of ink was balanced on the music-desk, a blotted scroll of paper obscured the yellowed keyboard. as the great composer worked at the score of his new opera, he breakfasted, taking draughts from the bottle, bites of sausage and bread, and sips of coffee at discretion. he was a quaint, ungainly figure, with vivacious eyes, and his ill-fitting auburn wig had served him, like the right lapel of his plaid dressing-gown, for a pen-wiper for uncounted years.
the maestro was not alone in the dusty studio to which so many people, both of the great and little worlds, sought entrance in vain. an olive-skinned youth, shabbily dressed in a gray paletot over a worn suit of black—a young fellow of sixteen, with a square, shaggy black head and a determined chin, the cleft in which was rapidly being hidden by an arriving beard—leaned against a music-stand crammed with portly volumes, his dark eyes anxiously fixed upon the old gentleman at the piano, who dipped in the ink and wrote, and wrote, and dipped in the ink, occasionally laying down the pen to strike a chord or two, in seeming forgetfulness of his visitor.
suddenly the maestro’s face beamed with a cheerful smile.
155“there, mon cher gladiali!” he handed the newly-written sheet of music to the boy, and spread his wrinkled fingers above the keys. “this is the great aria-solo i spoke of. sing that at sight—your training should make such a task an easy one—and let us see what stuff you are made of. allons!” and he struck the opening chord.
carlo gladiali turned pale and then red. he crossed himself hastily, grasped the sheet of paper, cast his eyes over it anxiously, and, meeting with a smiling glance the glittering old eyes of the maestro, he inflated his deep chest and sang. a wonderful tenor voice poured from his boyish throat; heart and soul shone in his eyes and thrilled in his accents. tears of delight dropped upon the piano-keys and upon the hands of the composer, and when the last pure note soared on high and swelled and sank, and the song ceased, the old musician cried: “thou art a treasure! come, let me embrace thee!” and clasped the young singer to his breast. “once more, mon fils—once more!”
and as he seated himself at the piano, sweeping the plate of sausage into the wastepaper-basket with a flourish of the large, snuff-stained yellow silk handkerchief with which he wiped his eyes, the door, which had been left ajar, was flung open, and a little dark-eyed, fair-haired girl, who carried a pierrot-doll, ran quickly into the room.
“marraine brought me; she is panting up the stairs because she is so fat and they are so steep. oldest papa——” she began; but the maestro held up his hand for silence as the song recommenced. more assurance was in carlo’s phrasing; the flexibility and brilliancy of his voice were no longer marred by nervousness. as the solo reached its triumphant close, the maestro said, slapping the boy on the back and taking a gigantic pinch of snuff:
156“the archangel gabriel might have done better. aha!” he turned, chuckling, to the little girl, who stood on one leg in the middle of the narrow room, pouting and dangling her pierrot. “la petite there is jealous. is it not so?”
“oldest papa, you make a very big mistake!” returned the little maiden, pouting still more. “i am not jealous of anybody in the world—least of all, a boy like that!” her dark eyes rested contemptuously on the big, shy, square-headed fellow in the gray paletot.
“a boy, she calls him!” chuckled the maestro. “ma mignonne, he is sixteen—six years older than thyself! hasten to grow up, become a great prima donna, and he shall sing romeo to thy juliette—i predict it!”
“i had rather sing with my cat!” observed the little lady rudely.
carlo flushed crimson; the maestro chuckled; and a stout lady who had followed her, panting, into the room, murmured, “oh! la méchante!” adding, as the maestro rose to greet her: “but she grows more incorrigible every day. this morning she pulled the feathers out of coco’s tail because he whistled out of tune.”
the elfin face of the small sinner dimpled into mischievous smiles.
“but that was not being as wicked as the maestro, who got angry at rehearsal, and hit the flute-player on the head with his baton, so that it raised a hump. you told me that yourself, and how the maestro——”
“quite true, petite; i did fetch him a rap, i promise you, and afterwards i put bank-notes for a hundred francs on the lump for a plaster. but come, now, sing to me, and we will give signor carlo here something worth hearing. écoutez, mon cher!”
“very well, i will sing; but, first, pierrot must be comfortably seated. that little armchair is just what he likes!” and, as quick as thought, the willful little 157lady tilted a pile of music out of the little armchair upon the floor. then she placed pierrot very carefully in his throne, and, bidding him be very good and listen, because his bonne petite maman was going to sing him something pretty, she tripped to the piano, and demurely requested the aged musician to accompany her in the rondo of “sonnambula.”
ah! what a miraculous voice proceeded from that small, willful throat! stirred to the depths by the extraordinary power and beauty of the child’s delivery, carlo gladiali listened enthralled; and when the last notes rippled from the pretty red lips of the now demure little creature, the big boy, forgetting her rudeness and his own shyness, started forward, and, sinking on one knee and seizing the small hand of the child-singer, he kissed it impulsively, crying: “ah, signorina, you were right, a thousand times! compared with you, i sing like a cat!”
“oh, no! i did not mean to say that!” the tiny lady was beginning graciously, when the maestro broke in:
“you both sing like cherubs and say civil things to one another. one day you will sing like angels—and quarrel like devils! please heaven, you will both make your début under my baton, and then, if i crack a flute-player’s head, it will be for joy.”
ten years had elapsed. carlo gladiali had risen to pre-eminence as a public singer, had attained the prime of his powers and the apogee of his fame. courted, fêted, and adored, the celebrated tenor, sated with success, laden with gifts, blasé with admiration, retained a few characteristics that might remind those who had known and loved him in boyhood of the ingenuous, honest, simple carlo of ten years ago.
certainly carlo’s jealousy of the prima donna who should dare to usurp a greater share of the public plaudits 158than he himself received was childish in its unreasonableness, and othello-like in its tragic intensity.
at first, he would join in the compliments, and smile patronizingly as he helped the successful débutante to gather up the bouquets. then his admiration would cool; he would tolerate, endure, then sneer, and finally grind his teeth. he would convey to the audience over one shoulder that they were idiots to applaud, and wither the triumphant cantatrice with a look of infinite contempt over the other. he had been known to feign sleep in the middle of a great soprano aria which, against his wish, had been encored. he had—or it was malevolently reputed so—bribed the hotel waiter to place a huge dish of macaroni, dressed exquisitely and smoking hot, in the way of a voracious contralto who within two hours was to essay for the first time the arduous r?le of brynhild. the macaroni had vanished, the contralto had failed to appear. numerous were the instances similar to these recorded of the tenor gladiali, and repeated in every corner of the opera-loving world.
but it was in london, where the great singer was “starring” during the covent garden season of 19—, that the haughty and intolerant carlo was to meet his match.
at rehearsal one morning, rebelli, the famous basso, said to gladiali, with a twinkle: “a new ‘star’ has dawned on the operatic horizon. la betisi, the pretty little soprano with the fiend’s temper and the seraph’s voice, has created a furore at rome and milan. she will ‘star’ over here in her successful r?les. i have it from the impresario himself.”
“ebbene!” carlo shrugged his shoulders and smiled with superb patronage. “we shall be very glad to welcome the little one.... artists should know how to value genius in others.”
“how well you always express things!” said rebelli, 159grinning. “she is to sing isolina in ‘belverde’ on the 10th. the spanish prima donna has broken her contract. as galantuomo, you will have an excellent opportunity of judging of her talents,” he added, as he turned away, “and scowling at the lady.”
but carlo did not scowl at first. he was all engaging courtesy and cordial welcome at the first rehearsal, when he was presented ceremoniously to a tiny little lady with willful dark eyes, pouting scarlet lips, and hair as golden as her own neapolitan sunshine. she vaguely reminded the tenor of somebody he had seen before.
“the maestro is coming from naples to conduct,” he heard rebelli say. “he vowed that la betisi should make her début under no baton save his own. her r?le will be isolina in his ‘belverde,’ in which, you know, she created such a sensation at la scala.”
“and you, signor, are to sing the great part of galantuomo in the ‘belverde’?” said the betisi demurely to gladiali. “this time i will not say, ‘i had rather sing with my cat!’”
carlo started. yes; there was no mistaking the willful mouth and the flashing defiant eyes. the little girl who had sung so divinely in the maestro’s dusty room ten years ago was the new operatic “star.” but he was not jealous of the betisi as yet. he said the most exquisite things—as only an italian can say them—and bowed over her hand.
“the signorina has fulfilled the glorious promise of her childhood and the prophecy of the maestro,” he said. “she who once sang like a cherub now sings like an angel. i am dying to hear you!” he added.
“ah!” cried the betisi with a little trill of laughter, “if you are dying now, what will you do afterwards?” the speech might have meant much or nothing, and, though carlo gladiali winced a little, he made no comment.
160a few rehearsals later a cloud of snuff enveloped him, and he was clasped in the arms of a brown great-coat of antique design. add, above, a gray woolen comforter and a traveling cap with ear-pieces, and, below, a pair of green trousers, ending in cloth boots with patent-leather toecaps, and you have the portrait of the maestro in traveling costume.
“heaven be praised, my dear carlino, that i have lived to see this day!... have you renewed acquaintance with my little witch, my enchanted bird, my drop of singing-water? embrace, my children; your maestro wishes it!”
and gladiali touched the cheek of emilia betisi with his lips. her sparkling eyes looked mockingly into his. then the maestro, who spoke not a word of english, scrambled to the conductor’s chair, and commenced to harangue the musicians who constituted the orchestra in a fluent conglomeration of several other languages, and the rehearsals of “belverde” began.
the new soprano and the new opera made an instantaneous and unparalleled “hit.” carlo helped to pick up la betisi’s bouquets, and made a pretty speech to her at the final descent of the curtain. but his heart was not in his eyes or on his lips.
upon the second representation, he yawned in the middle of isolina’s great aria, and he openly sneered at the audience for encoring the song three times. in the last act, in the garden scene, which offered the principal opportunity for the display of the new prima donna’s art, carlo sucked jujubes, and openly wore one in his cheek while receiving, as galantuomo, from the maddened isolina the most feverish protestations of love. he noted something more than feigned frenzy in the flaming black eyes of the betisi at this juncture, and, somewhat unwisely, permitted himself to smile. next moment he received a deep scratch upon the cheek, 161which tingled for a moment, then bled copiously, obliging the tenor to sing the final romanza with a handkerchief to his face.
“convey to signor gladiali my profoundest apologies,” said the betisi to her dresser. “he will really think that he was singing a duet with a cat! but the next performance goes better.” her dark eyes gleamed, her red lips smiled. she thirsted for the second representation.
so did carlo. he had thought out a few little things calculated to drive a cantatrice to the pitch of desperation. for instance, at the second encore of her great song, separated only by a duet from his great song in the first act, he would fetch a chair and sit down. aha!
but—whether his intention had leaked out through rebelli, to whom in a moment of champagne he had confided it, or whether the betisi was in league with demons, let it be decided—it was she who fetched, not a chair, but a three-legged stool, and sat down on it in the middle of his first encore. and so charming an air of patience did she assume, and so genuine seemed her pity for the deluded public who had redemanded the song, that signor carlo, who wore a strip of black court plaster on one cheek, nearly had an apoplexy. he meant to eat jujubes through her great song, but the betisi was prepared. she produced a box and offered them to him, singing all the while more brilliantly than she had ever sung before; and when the house rose at her in rapture and demanded an encore, she tripped and fetched the three-legged stool and gave it, with a triumphant curtsey, to the foaming galantuomo. and the crowded house roared with delight.
but the punishment of carlo came in the second act. in the celebrated garden scene, where slighted love drives isolina into temporary madness, she not only 162scratched her galantuomo on the other cheek, but pulled his wig off. and in the crowning scene, where isolina reveals herself as the daughter of the king, and summons the court to witness the humiliation of galantuomo by beating on a gong which is suspended from a tree, came the betisi’s great opportunity. running through the most difficult passages of the arduous scena with the greatest nonchalance, disposing of octaves, double octaves, and ranging from sol to si-flat in the violin-clef with the utmost ease, she electrified and enthralled her hearers; and, in the gusto of singing, when the moment arrived for striking on the gong previously referred to, she missed the instrument, and struck the tenor violently upon the nose. the unfortunate organ attained pantomimic dimensions within the few minutes that ensued subsequently to the delivery of the blow and previous to the falling of the curtain, and i have heard was favored by the gallery with a special call.
“alas, signor carlo, i know not how to express my regret!... i was carried away...” faltered the betisi, as with secret triumph and feigned remorse she looked upon the tenor’s swollen nose.
carlo gave her a passionate glance over it. as it had enlarged, so had his heart and his understanding; he saw his enemy beautiful, triumphant—a queen of song. he was conquered and her slave.
“never mind my nose,” he said generously. “i am beaten, fairly beaten, and with my own weapons. you are a clever woman, signora, and a great singer. permit me to take your hand.”
“there,” she said, and gave it. “and you, signor, are a magnificent artist, though i have sometimes thought you a stupid man. what is it but stupidity—dio!” she cried, “to be jealous of a woman of whom one is not even the lover or the husband?”
“give me the right to be jealous,” said carlo the 163tenor. “make me one and the other! marry me, emilia. i adore you!”
an atmosphere of snuff and mildew enveloped them, as the maestro, the date and design of whose evening dress-suit baffled the antiquarian and enraptured the caricaturist, embraced both the tenor and the soprano in rapid succession.
“aha! mes enfants, am i not a true prophet?” he cried. “hasten to grow up, i said to the little one ten years ago, and carlo there shall one day sing romeo to thy juliet.” he embraced them again. “you sing like angels—you quarrel like devils! heaven intended you for one another. be happy!” and the maestro blessed the betrothed lovers with a sprinkling of snuff.
