But it was not Gemma’s voice—it was
herself Sanin was admiring. He was sitting a
little behind and on one side of her, and kept thinking
to himself that no palm-tree, even in the poems of
Benediktov—the poet in fashion in those
days—could rival the slender grace of her
figure. When, at the most emotional passages,
she raised her eyes upwards—it seemed to
him no heaven could fail to open at such a look!
Even the old man, Pantaleone, who with his shoulder
propped against the doorpost, and his chin and mouth
tucked into his capacious cravat, was listening solemnly
with the air of a connoisseur—even he was
admiring the girl’s lovely face and marvelling
at it, though one would have thought he must have
been used to it! When she had finished the duet
with her daughter, Frau Lenore observed that Emilio
had a fine voice, like a silver bell, but that now
he was at the age when the voice changes—he
did, in fact, talk in a sort of bass constantly falling
into falsetto—and that he was therefore
forbidden to sing; but that Pantaleone now really
might try his skill of old days in honour of their
guest! Pantaleone promptly put on a displeased
air, frowned, ruffled up his hair, and declared that
he had given it all up long ago, though he could certainly
in his youth hold his own, and indeed had belonged
to that great period, when there were real classical
singers, not to be compared to the squeaking performers
of to-day! and a real school of singing; that he,
Pantaleone Cippatola of Varese, had once been brought
a laurel wreath from Modena, and that on that occasion
some white doves had positively been let fly in the
theatre; that among others a Russian prince Tarbusky—’il
principe Tarbusski’—with whom
he had been on the most friendly terms, had after
supper persistently invited him to Russia, promising
him mountains of gold, mountains!...
but that he had
been unwilling to leave Italy, the land of Dante—il
paese del Dante! Afterward, to be sure, there
came ... unfortunate circumstances, he had himself
been imprudent.... At this point the old man broke
off, sighed deeply twice, looked dejected, and began
again talking of the classical period of singing,
of the celebrated tenor Garcia, for whom he cherished
a devout, unbounded veneration. ‘He was
a man!’ he exclaimed. ’Never had
the great Garcia (il gran Garcia) demeaned
himself by singing falsetto like the paltry tenors
of to-day—tenoracci; always from
the chest, from the chest, voce di petto, si!’
and the old man aimed a vigorous blow with his little
shrivelled fist at his own shirt-front! ’And
what an actor! A volcano, signori miei,
a volcano, un Vesuvio! I had the honour
and the happiness of singing with him in the opera
dell’ illustrissimo maestro Rossini—in
Otello! Garcia was Otello,—I was Iago—and
when he rendered the phrase’:—here
Pantaleone threw himself into an attitude and began
singing in a hoarse and shaky, but still moving voice:
Copyrights
The Torrents of Spring from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
