A Roman Singer by F. Marion Crawford

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"You have no heart at all, maestro," said Nino at last. "Let us sing."

They worked hard at Bordogni for half an hour, and Nino did not open
his mouth except to produce the notes. But as his blood was up from
the preceding interview he took great pains, and Ercole, who makes him
sing all the solfeggi he can from a sense of duty, himself wearied of
the ridiculous old-fashioned runs and intervals.

"Bene," he said; "let us sing a piece now, and then you will have done
enough." He put an opera on the piano, and Nino lifted up his voice
and sang, only too glad to give his heart passage to his lips. Ercole
screwed up his eyes with a queer smile he has when he is pleased.

"Capperi!" he ejaculated, when Nino had done.

"What has happened?" asked the latter.

"I cannot tell you what has happened," said Ercole, "but I will tell
you that you had better always sing like that, and you will be
applauded. Why have you never sung that piece in that way before?"

"I do not know. Perhaps it is because I am unhappy."

"Very well, never dare to be happy again, if you mean to succeed. You
can make a statue shed tears if you please." Ercole took a pinch of
snuff, and turned round to look out of the window. Nino leaned on the
piano, drumming with his fingers and looking at the back of the
maestro's head. The first rays of the sun just fell into the room and
gilded the red brick floor.

"Then instead of buying lavender kid gloves," said Nino at last, his
face relaxing a little, "and going to the Villa Borghese, you advise
me to borrow a guitar and sing to my statue? Is that it?"

"Che Diana! I did not say that!" said Ercole, still facing the window
and finishing his pinch of snuff with a certain satisfaction. "But if
you want the guitar, take it--there it lies. I will not answer for
what you do with it." His voice sounded kindly, for he was so much
pleased. Then he made Nino sing again, a little love song of Tosti,
who writes for the heart and sings so much better without a voice than
all your stage tenors put together. And the maestro looked long at
Nino when he had done, but he did not say anything. Nino put on his
hat gloomily enough, and prepared to go.

"I will take the guitar, if you will lend it to me," he said.

"Yes, if you like, and I will give you a handkerchief to wrap it up
with," said De Pretis, absently, but he did not get up from his seat.
He was watching Nino, and he seemed to be thinking. Just as the boy
was going with the instrument under his arm he called him back.

"Ebbene?" said Nino, with his hand on the lock of the door.

"I will make you a song to sing to your guitar," said Ercole.

"You?"

"Yes--but without music. Look here, Nino--sit down. What a hurry you
are in. I was young myself, once upon time."

"Once upon a time! Fairy stories--once upon a time there was a king,
and so on." Nino was not to be easily pacified.

"Well, perhaps it is a fairy tale, but it is in the future. I have an
idea."

"Oh, is that all? But it is the first time. I understand."

Listen. Have you read Dante?"

"I know the _Vita Nuova_ by heart, and some of the _Commedia_. But how
the diavolo does Dante enter into this question?"

"And Silvio Pellico, and a little literature?" continued Ercole, not
heeding the comment.

"Yes, after a fashion. And you? Do you know them?"

"Che c'entro io?" cried Ercole, impatiently; "what do I want to know
such things for? But I have heard of them."

"I congratulate you," replied Nino, ironically.

"Have patience. You are no longer an artist. You are a professor of
literature."

"I--a professor of literature? What nonsense are you talking?"

"You are a great stupid donkey, Nino. Supposing I obtain for you an
engagement to read literature with the Contessina di Lira, will you
not be a professor? If you prefer singing--" But Nino comprehended in
a flash the whole scope of the proposal, and threw his arm round
Ercole's neck and embraced him.

"What a mind! Oh, maestro mio, I will die for you! Command me, and
I will do anything for you; I will run errands for you, black
your boots, anything--" he cried in the ecstasy of delight that
overmastered him.

"Piano, piano," objected the maestro, disengaging himself from his
pupil's embrace. "It is not done yet. There is much, much to think of
first." Nino retreated, a little disconcerted at not finding his
enthusiasm returned, but radiant still.

"Calm yourself," said Ercole, smiling. "If you do this thing you must
act a part. You must manage to conceal your occupation entirely. You
must look as solemn as an undertaker and be a real professor. They
will ultimately find you out, and throw you out of the window, and
dismiss me for recommending you. But that is nothing."

"No," said Nino, "that is of no importance." And he ran his fingers
through his hair, and looked delighted.

"You shall know all about it this evening, or to-morrow--"

"This evening, Sor Ercole, this evening, or I shall die. Stay, let me
go to the house with you, when you give your lesson, and wait for you
at the door."

"Pumpkin-head! I will have nothing to do with you," said De Pretis.

"Ah, I will be as quiet as you please. I will be like a lamb, and wait
until this evening."

"If you will really be quiet, I will do what you wish. Come to me
this evening about the Ave Maria--or a little earlier. Yes, come at
twenty-three hours. In October that is about five o'clock, by French
time.

"And I may take the guitar?" said Nino, as he rose to go.

"With all my heart. But do not spoil everything by singing to her, and
betraying yourself."

So Nino thanked the maestro enthusiastically and went away, humming a
tune, as he now and again struck the strings of the guitar that he
carried under his arm, to be sure it was there.

Do not think that because De Pretis suddenly changed his mind, and
even proposed to Nino a plan for making the acquaintance of the young
countess, he is a man to veer about like a weather-cock, nor yet a bad
man, willing to help a boy to do mischief. That is not at all like
Ercole de Pretis. He has since told me he was much astonished at the
way Nino sang the love song at his lesson; and he was instantly
convinced that in order to be a great artist Nino must be in love
always. Besides, the maestro is as liberal in his views of life as he
is conservative in his ideas about government. Nino is everything the
most straight-laced father could wish him to be, and as he was then
within a few months of making his first appearance on the stage, De
Pretis, who understands those things, could very well foresee the
success he has had. Now De Pretis is essentially a man of the people,
and I am not; therefore he saw no objection in the way of a match
between a great singer and a noble damigelia. But had I known what was
going on, I would have stopped the whole affair at that point, for I
am not so weak as Mariuccia seems to think. I do not mean now that
everything is settled I would wish it undone. Heaven forbid! But I
would have stopped it then, for it is a most incongruous thing, a
peasant boy making love to a countess.

Nino, however, has one great fault, and that is his reticence. It is
true, he never does anything he would not like me, or all the world,
to know. But I would like to know, all the same. It is a habit I have
fallen into, from having to watch that old woman, for fear she should
be too extravagant. All that time he never said anything, and I
supposed he had forgotten all about the contessina, for I did not
chance to see De Pretis; and when I did he talked of nothing but
Nino's _debut_ and the arrangements that were to be made. So that I
knew nothing about it, though I was pleased to see him reading so
much. He took a sudden fancy for literature, and read when he was not
singing, and even made me borrow Ambrosoli, in several volumes, from a
friend. He read every word of it, and talked very intelligently about
it too. I never thought there was any reason.

But De Pretis thinks differently. He believes that a man may be the
son of a ciociaro--a fellow who ties his legs up in rags and thongs,
and lives on goats' milk in the mountains--and that if he has brains
enough, or talent enough, he may marry any woman he likes without ever
thinking whether she is noble or not. De Pretis must be old-fashioned,
for I am sure I do not think in that way, and I know a hundred times
as much as he--a hundred times.

I suppose it must have been the very day when Nino had been to De
Pretis in the morning that he had instructions to go to the house of
Count von Lira on the morrow; for I remember very well that Nino acted
strangely in the evening, singing and making a noise for a few
minutes, and then burying himself in a book. However that may be, it
was very soon afterwards that he went to the Palazzo Carmandola,
dressed in his best clothes, he tells me, in order to make a
favourable impression on the count. The latter had spoken to De Pretis
about the lessons in literature, to which he attached great
importance, and the maestro had turned the idea to account for his
pupil. But Nino did not expect to see the young contessa on this first
day, or at least he did not hope he would be able to speak to her. And
so it turned out.

The footman, who had a red waistcoat, and opened the door with
authority, as if ready to close it again on the smallest provocation,
did not frighten Nino at all, though he eyed him suspiciously enough,
and after ascertaining his business departed to announce him to the
count. Meanwhile, Nino, who was very much excited at the idea of being
under the same roof with the object of his adoration, set himself down
on one of the carved chests that surrounded the hall. The green baize
door at the other end swung noiselessly on its hinges, closing itself
behind the servant, and the boy was left alone. He might well be
frightened, if not at the imposing appearance of the footman, at
least at the task he had undertaken. But a boy like Nino is afraid of
nothing when he is in love, and he simply looked about him, realising
that he was without doubt in the house of a gran' signor, and from
time to time brushing a particle of dust from his clothes, or trying
to smooth his curly black hair, which he had caused to be clipped a
little for the occasion; a very needless expense, for he looks better
with his hair long.

Before many moments the servant returned, and with some condescension
said that the count awaited him. Nino would rather have faced the
mayor, or the king himself, than Graf von Lira, though he was not at
all frightened--he was only very much excited, and he strove to calm
himself, as he was ushered through the apartments to the small
sitting-room where he was expected.

Graf von Lira, as I have already told you, is a foreigner of rank, who
had been a Prussian colonel, and was wounded in the war of 1866. He is
very tall, very thin, and very grey, with wooden features and a huge
moustache that stands out like the beaks on the colonna rostrata. His
eyes are small and very far apart, and fix themselves with terrible
severity when he speaks, even if he is only saying "good-morning." His
nails are very long and most carefully kept, and though he is so lame
that he could not move a step without the help of his stick, he is
still an upright and military figure. I remember well how he looked,
for he came to see me under peculiar circumstances, many months after
the time of which I am now speaking; and, besides, I had stood next to
him for an hour in the chapel of the choir in St. Peter's.

He speaks Italian intelligibly, but with the strangest German
constructions, and he rolls the letter _r_ curiously in his throat.
But he is an intelligent man for a soldier, though he thinks talent is
a matter of education, and education a matter of drill. He is the most
ceremonious man I ever saw; and Nino says he rose from his chair to
meet him, and would not sit down again until Nino was seated.

"The signore is the professor of Italian literature recommended to
me by Signor De Pretis?" inquired the colonel in iron tones, as he
scrutinised Nino.

"Yes, Signor Conte," was the answer.

"You are a singularly young man to be a professor." Nino trembled.
"And how have you the education obtained in order the obligations and
not-to-be-avoided responsibilities of this worthy-of-all-honour career
to meet?"

"I went to school here, Signor Conte, and the Professor Grandi, in
whose house I always have lived, has taught me everything else I
know."

"What do you know?" inquired the count, so suddenly that Nino was
taken off his guard. He did not know what to answer. The count looked
very stern and pulled his moustaches. "You have not here come,"
he continued, seeing that Nino made no answer, "without knowing
something. Evident is it, that, although a man young be, if he nothing
knows, he cannot a professor be."

"You speak justly, Signor Conte," Nino answered at last, "and I do
know some things. I know the _Commedia_ of Alighieri, and Petrarca,
and I have read the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ with Professor Grandi, and
I can repeat all of the _Vita Nuova_ by heart, and some of the--"

"For the present that is enough," said the count. "If you nothing
better to do have, will you so kind be as to begin?"

"Begin?" said Nino, not understanding.

"Yes, signore; it would unsuitable be if I my daughter to the hands of
a man committed unacquainted with the matter he to teach her proposes.
I desire to be satisfied that you all these things really know."

"Do I understand, Signor Conte, that you wish me to repeat to you some
of the things I know by heart?"

"You have me understood," said the count severely, "I have all the
books bought of which you speak. You will repeat, and I will in the
book follow. Then shall we know each other much better."

Nino was not a little astonished at this mode of procedure, and
wondered how far his memory would serve him in such an unexpected
examination.

"It will take a long time to ascertain in this way--" he began.

"This," said the count coldly, as he opened a volume of Dante, "is the
celestial play by Signor Alighieri. If you anything know, you will it
repeat."

Nino resigned himself and began repeating the first canto of the
"Inferno." When he had finished it he paused.

"Forwards," said the count, without any change of manner.

"More?" inquired Nino.

"March!" said the old gentleman in military tone, and the boy went on
with the second canto.

"Apparently know you the beginning." The count opened the book at
random in another place. "The thirtieth canto of 'Purgatory.' You will
now it repeat."

"Ah!" cried Nino, "that is where Dante meets Beatrice."

"My hitherto not-by-any-means-extensive, but always from-the-conscience-
undertaken reading, reaches not so far. You will it repeat. So shall we
know." Nino passed his hand inside his collar as though to free his
throat, and began again, losing all consciousness of his tormentor in
his own enjoyment of the verse.

"When was the Signor Alighieri born?" inquired Graf von Lira, very
suddenly, as though to catch him.

"May 1265, in Florence," answered the other, as quickly.

"I said when, not where. I know he was in Florence born. When _and_
where died he?" The question was asked fiercely.

"Fourteenth of September 1321, at Ravenna."

"I think really you something of Signor Alighieri know," said the
count, and shut up the volume of the poet and the dictionary of dates
he had been obliged to consult to verify Nino's answers. "We will
proceed."

Nino is fortunately one of those people whose faculties serve them
best at their utmost need, and during the three hours--three blessed
hours--that Graf von Lira kept him under his eye, asking questions and
forcing him to repeat all manner of things, he acquitted himself
fairly well.

"I have now myself satisfied that you something know," said the count,
in his snappish military fashion, and he shut the last book, and never
from that day referred in any manner to Nino's extent of knowledge,
taking it for granted that he had made an exhaustive investigation.
"And now," he continued, "I desire you to engage for the reading of
literature with my daughter, upon the usual terms." Nino was so much
pleased that he almost lost his self-control, but a moment restored
his reflection.

"I am honoured--" he began.

"You are not honoured at all," interrupted the count, coldly. "What
are the usual terms?"

"Three or four francs a lesson," suggested Nino.

"Three or four francs are not the usual terms. I have inquiries made.
Five francs are the usual terms. Three times in the week, at eleven.
You will on the morrow begin. Allow me to offer you some cigars." And
he ended the interview.

CHAPTER IV

In a sunny room overlooking the great courtyard of the Palazzo
Carmandola, Nino sat down to give Hedwig von Lira her first lesson in
Italian literature. He had not the remotest idea what the lesson would
be like, for in spite of the tolerably wide acquaintance with the
subject which he owed to my care and my efforts to make a scholar of
him, he knew nothing about teaching. Nevertheless, as his pupil spoke
the language fluently, though with the occasional use of words of low
origin, like all foreigners who have grown up in Rome and have learned
to speak from their servants, he anticipated little difficulty. He
felt quite sure of being able to interpret the hard places, and he had
learned from me to know the best and finest passages in a number of
authors.

But imagine the feelings of a boy of twenty, perfectly in love,
without having the smallest right to be, suddenly placed by the side
of the object of his adoration, and told to teach her all he
knows--with her father in the next room and the door open between! I
have always thought it was a proof of Nino's determined character,
that he should have got over this first lesson without accident.

Hedwig von Lira, the contessina, as we always call her, is just Nino's
age, but she seemed much younger, as the children of the North always
do. I have told you what she was like to look at, and you will not
wonder that I called her a statue. She looked as cold as a statue,
just as I said, and so I should hardly describe her as beautiful. But
then I am not a sculptor, nor do I know anything about those arts,
though I can tell a good work when I see it. I do not wish to appear
prejudiced, and so I will not say anything more about it. I like life
in living things, and sculptors may, if it please them, adore straight
noses, and level brows, and mouths that no one could possibly eat
with. I do not care in the least, and if you say that I once thought
differently, I answer that I do not wish to change your opinion, but
that I will change my own as often as I please. Moreover, if you say
that the contessina did not act like a statue in the sequel, I will
argue that if you put marble in the fire it will take longer to heat
and longer to cool than clay; only clay is made to be put into the
fire, and marble is not. Is not that a cunning answer?

The contessina is a foreigner in every way, although she was born
under our sun. They have all sorts of talents, these people, but so
little ingenuity in using them that they never accomplish anything. It
seems to amuse them to learn to do a great many things, although they
must know from the beginning that they can never excel in any one of
them. I dare say the contessina plays on the piano very creditably,
for even Nino says she plays well; but is it of any use to her?

Nino very soon found out that she meant to read literature very
seriously, and, what is more, she meant to read it in her own way. She
was as different from her father as possible in everything else, but
in a despotic determination to do exactly as she liked, she resembled
him. Nino was glad that he was not called upon to use his own
judgment, and there he sat, content to look at her, twisting his hands
together below the table to concentrate his attention and master
himself; and he read just what she told him to read, expounding the
words and phrases she could not understand. I dare say that with his
hair well brushed, and his best coat, and his eyes on the book, he
looked as proper as you please. But if the high-born young lady had
returned the glances he could not refrain from bending upon her now
and then, she would have seen a lover, if she could see at all.

She did not see. The haughty Prussian damsel hardly noticed the man,
for she was absorbed by the professor. Her small ears were all
attention, and her slender fingers made notes with a common pencil, so
that Nino wondered at the contrast between the dazzling white hand and
the smooth, black, varnished instrument of writing. He took no account
of time that day, and was startled by the sound of the mid-day gun and
the angry clashing of the bells. The contessina looked up suddenly and
met his eyes, but it was the boy that blushed.

"Would you mind finishing the canto?" she asked. "There are only ten
lines more--" Mind! Nino flushed with pleasure.

"Anzi--by all means," he cried. "My time is yours, signorina."

When they had done he rose, and his face was sad and pale again. He
hated to go, but he was only a teacher, and at his first lesson, too.
She also rose, and waited for him to leave the room. He could not hold
his tongue.

"Signorina--" he stammered, and checked himself. She looked at him, to
listen, but his heart smote him when he had thus arrested her attention.
What could he say as he stood bowing? It was sufficiently stupid, what
he said.

"I shall have the honour of returning to-morrow, the day after
to-morrow, I would say."

"Yes," said she, "I believe that is the arrangement. Good-morning,
Signor Professore." The title of professor rang strangely in his ear.
Was there the slightest tinge of irony in her voice? Was she laughing
at his boyish looks? Ugh! the thought tingled. He bowed himself out.

That was the first lesson, and the second was like it, I suppose, and
a great many others about which I knew nothing, for I was always
occupied in the middle of the day, and did not ask where he went. It
seemed to me that he was becoming a great dandy, but as he never asked
me for any money from the day he learnt to copy music I never put any
questions. He certainly had a new coat before Christmas, and gloves,
and very nice boots, that made me smile when I thought of the day when
he arrived, with only one shoe--and it had a hole in it as big as half
his foot. But now he grew to be so careful of his appearance that
Mariuccia began to call him the "signorino." De Pretis said he was
making great progress, and so I was contented, though I always thought
it was a sacrifice for him to be a singer.

Of course, as he went three times a week to the Palazzo Carmandola, he
began to be used to the society of the contessina. I never understood
how he succeeded in keeping up the comedy of being a professor. A real
Roman would have discovered him in a week. But foreigners are
different. If they are satisfied they pay their money and ask no
questions. Besides, he studied all the time, saying that if he ever
lost his voice he would turn man of letters; which sounded so prudent
that I had nothing to say. Once, we were walking in the Corso, and the
contessina with her father passed in the carriage. Nino raised his
hat, but they did not see him, for there is always a crowd in the
Corso.

"Tell me," he cried, excitedly, as they went by, "is it not true that
she is beautiful?"

"A piece of marble, my son," said I, suspecting nothing; and I turned
into a tobacconist's to buy a cigar.

One day--Nino says it was in November--the contessina began asking him
questions about the Pantheon, it was in the middle of the lesson, and
he wondered at her stopping to talk. But you may imagine whether he
was glad or not to have an opportunity of speaking about something
besides Dante.

"Yes, signorina," he answered, "Professor Grandi says it was built for
public baths; but, of course, we all think it was a temple."

"Were you ever there at night?" asked she, indifferently, and the sun
through the window so played with her golden hair that Nino wondered
how she could ever think of night at all.

"At night, signorina? No indeed! What should I go there at night to
do, in the dark! I was never there at night."

"I will go there at night," she said briefly.

"Ah--you would have it lit up with torches, as they do the Coliseum?"

"No. Is there no moon in Italy, professore?"

"The moon, there is. But there is such a little hole in the top of the
Rotonda"--that is our Roman name for the Pantheon--"that it would be
very dark."

"Precisely," said she. "I will go there at night, and see the moon
shining through the hole in the dome."

"Eh," cried Nino laughing, "you will see the moon better outside in
the piazza. Why should you go inside, where you can see so little of
it?"

"I will go," replied the contessina. "The Italians have no sense of
the beautiful--the mysterious." Her eyes grew dreamy as she tried to
call up the picture she had never seen.

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