There was, at all events, one man at Ravenna who was entirely pleased and satisfied with the famous prima donna in all respects: and this was Signor Ercole Stadione.
The Carnival campaign of La Lalli had been thus far brilliantly successful, and the Carnival was now about half over. She "drew," as the little impresario had prophesied she would, to his heart's content. It was many a year since there had been so successful a season at the theatre. Each part she sang in was a more brilliant success than the last; and the public enthusiasm was such as enthusiasm on such subjects never is save in Italy.
In every respect, too, her ways and behaviour had been unexceptional. Her attention was never distracted from her business by the visits of young men behind the scenes—a torment which, during the reigns of other Divas, had often driven the poor little impresario, who dared not get rid of such intruders as he would have liked to do, almost wild. Bianca would permit no visits of the kind. She had never behaved herself to any of the young men in such sort as to cause any of those rivalries and jealousies which are sometimes apt to manifest themselves in hostile partisanship, when the Diva is on the boards—another fruitful source of trouble to much-tried impresarios.
She had walked circumspectly and prudently in all respects—a most moral and highly satisfactory Diva.
She was understood to receive no visitors at home—at least, none of a compromising kind. The Marchese Lamberto was often with her: of course, naturally! He was well known to be always a sort of second amateur manager: neither the theatre nor little Ercole Stadione could go on without him. And then the Marchese Lamberto was—the Marchese Lamberto! If he had chosen to sit by the bedside of any prima donna in Italy night after night, it would only have been supposed that he was giving her possets for the improvement of her voice.
Occasionally, also, she would receive the visits of the Marchese Ludovico; evidently by reason of the unavoidable intimacy of his uncle in the house. And Ludovico reported to them all at the Circolo that she was a most charming woman indeed—full of talent, merry as a young girl, companionable, and fond of society, but wholly devoted to her art, and quite inaccessible in the way of love-making. He assured the jeunesse doree of Ravenna that they lost nothing in any such point of view by their exclusion from her intimacy, for that all their enterprises in that line would be quite thrown away.
The Conte Leandro Lombardoni, indeed, always carried about with him in his breast-pocket, a carefully preserved little letter on pink notepaper, which he gave the world to understand was part of a correspondence carried on between him (reconciled as he was to the bel sesso) and the Diva; and had more than once contrived to be seen hanging about the door of her house at hours when honest Divas, as well as mortals, ought to be in bed and asleep. But nobody believed him, or imagined that anything save a bad cold was at all likely to result from his vigils beneath the cold stars. He showed, indeed, with many mysterious precautions against the remainder of the letter being seen, that the little pink sheet of notepaper did indeed bear the signature of "Bianca Lalli." But when one of the ingenuous youth picked his pocket of it, it was found to be a very coldly courteous acknowledgment of a copy of verses, which the Diva promised to read as soon as her avocations would permit her to do so!
"Any way," said the discomfited poet, "that is more than any of you others have got. And it's not so small a matter, when you come to think of it!"
"Per Bacco, no! Leandro is in the right of it!" said the young Conte Beppo Farini; "a small matter to find somebody who promises even to read his verses! I should think not, indeed! Where will you find another to do as much?"
"Riconciliato col bel sesso! I should think you were, indeed!" cried another; "she absolutely thanks you for sending her your rhymes! Nobody ever did as much as that before, Leandro mio! No wonder you haunt the street before her door!"
"I don't haunt the street before her door. Envy, Jealousy, ye green-eyed and loathsome monsters, how miserably small and mean can ye make the hearts of men!" said Leandro, lifting up hands and eyes.
"Bravo, Leandro, bravo! get upon the table, man!" cried Farini.
"Get home to bed, rather. It is too bad, because no human being will read his poetry, he takes to spouting it!" said the other.
"Let us look what she says," cried Ludovico di Castelmare; putting out his hand to take the little note. "Upon my word she writes a pretty hand. It is a very neatly expressed note."
"Oh, you can see that much, can you?" returned Leandro. "I should think it was too! Is there any one of you here can show such a note from any woman, let her be who she may? She says she will read the poem I have been good enough to send her—good enough to send her, mark that!—as soon as she can find time to do so! What could she say more, I should like to know? Of course she is occupied. It stands to reason. But she will read my poem; and then you will see!"
"Ay, then we shall see our little Leandro duly appreciated at last!" said the Barone Manutoli. "As soon as the Diva has found time to read the poem there will come another little pink note, adorably perfumed: he will be summoned to her august presence, and installed as her poet in ordinary, and who knows what else besides,—her Magnus Apollo? It is a pity there are not eight other prime donne to make up the sacred number. Then we should see our Leandro in his true position and vocation. Give me a sheet of paper, and I will show you a new presentation of Apollo and the Muses. They are all presenting him with pasticcerie and bonbons. He has one hand on the lyre, and the other on his stomach, for the homage of the goddesses has made him somewhat sick; his eyes, you observe, are cast heavenwards, partly by reason of poetic inspiration, and partly by reason of nausea!"
"Bravo! bravo, Manutoli!" cried a chorus of voices.
"Envy and jealousy, envy and jealousy, all envy and jealousy. It is pitiable to see what they can reduce men to," cried the poet, foaming at the mouth.
"Never mind them, Leandro mio—never mind them. It is the universal penalty of true merit, you know; the same thing all the world over," said Ludovico.
"But, I say, Ludovico," rejoined Manutoli, "in the meantime, till our Leandro's poem shall have been read and duly appreciated, you are the only one who has been admitted to the privacy of La Lalli. What is your report to us Gentiles of the outer court? Is she really so unapproachable? And is she as adorable behind the scenes as before them?"
"Well, you ought to be able to answer that question yourself, Manutoli," replied Ludovico; "you were with lo zio and me that day when we went out to meet her; I am sure you had a fair look at her then."
"A look? Yes; and I looked all I could look. I saw a charming face, younger and fresher looking than might have been expected from the length of time she has been on the boards,—a very pretty figure, as far as her travelling-dress would show it one; and the loveliest foot and ankle I ever saw in my life. I could swear to that again at any time. Don't you remember how she stood with her foot down on the step, when she was getting out of the carriage. I thought at the time that she knew what she was about very well."
"Of course she did. Do you think they don't always know very well, every one of them, off the stage or on the stage?" said Farini.
"But I want to know what sort of body, she is?" returned Manutoli; "I don't need to be told that she is a very lovely woman; but of what sort is she? Why does she keep us all at a distance? What is her game?"
"Upon my life I don't know," answered Ludovico, "unless it's a devouring passion for Leandro. I protest I have no reason to think she cares a button for anything but her own art. I never tried; but it's my impression that if I had ever whispered a word in her ear I should have got a flea in my own for my pains."
"You don't want to make us believe that you have been seeing her frequently all this time,—passing hours with her a quattro occhi, and have never made love to her, Ludovico?" said Farini.
"No; I don't want to make you believe don't care a straw whether you have it or not; but it is the the fact, for all that," returned Ludovico.
"Ludovico has enough on his hands in quarter. What would they say about it in the Via Santa Eufemia if he were to bow down to new and strange goddesses?" said Manutoli.
"That, if you please, Manutoli, we will not discuss either now or at any other time," said Ludovico, with a look that showed he was in earnest. "But, as for La Diva Bianca, I have no objection to tell all I know to anybody. My belief is that she is as correct and proper, and all that sort of thing, as a Vestal."
"Che!"
"Che!"
"Che!"
A chorus of protestations of incredulity in every tone of the gamut met the monstrous assertion.
"What, after all we heard of her doings at Milan—after all the histories of her goddess-ship in every city of Italy?" said Manutoli.
"Well, what did we hear of her doings at Milan? The fact is, we know nothing about the matter; and as to her previous history—of course I don't suppose that she is, and always has been, a Diana; but it may be that she has come to the time when she has thought it well to turn over a new leaf. Such times do come to such women; but all I know is, that I firmly believe that since she has been here she has lived the life of a nun," said Ludovico, in the simple tone of a man who is stating a truth which he has no interest in causing his hearers to credit or discredit.
"Per Bacco, it's queer!" said Farini, slapping his hand against his thigh. "I have heard," he continued in the tone of one speaking of some strange and almost incredible monstrosity,—"I have heard of such women taking a turn to devozione. It's not that with La Lalli, is it?"
"Che! Nothing of the sort; she is as full of frolic as a kitten—up to any fun. And she is a very clever woman, too, let me tell you—a good deal of education. If you will put making love to her out of your head, I never knew a woman who was pleasanter company," said Ludovico.
"And you really mean that you have never tried to make love to her in any way?" reiterated Manutoli.
"I do mean it, upon my soul; but I don't care a rap whether you believe it or not," rejoined Ludovico.
"And you are with her very frequently?" persisted Manutoli.
"Yes, I have seen a good deal of her altogether. I like her; and I fancy she likes me to go there; she seems to wish me to come. Perhaps it is a novelty to her to have a man about her who doesn't try to make love to her."
"The Marchese Lamberto sees her a good deal?"
"Yes; naturally. If it had not been for that I should probably never have made acquaintance with her at all. Lo zio is continually there. He ought to have been an impresario. In fact, he is the real impresario. Little Ercole only does what my uncle tells him. I don't believe she ever sings a note on the stage that he has not heard and approved beforehand."
"Suppose he is the dark horse; suppose she is his mistress all this time; and he takes care to keep her all to himself," said Manutoli.
"What, lo zio. Bah! I should have thought that you knew him better than that, Manutoli. To him a woman is a voice, and nothing else. If the same sounds could be got out of a flute or a fiddle he would like it much better, and think it far more convenient. I don't think my uncle Lamberto ever knew whether a woman was pretty or plain. I wish to heaven he would get caught for once in his life; it would suit my book very well. He would have less leisure to think of other things."
The fact was that the Marchese had, in truth, had less leisure to think of those other things from which Ludovico desired that his attention should be drawn away. His visits to the Via Santa Eufemia had been more frequent than ever; his visits to the Marchesa Anna Lanfredi and her niece rarer than ever. And he had received neither lectures nor remonstrances for a long time past. In truth, the Marchese had his mind too full of other matters to think much of his nephew's affairs or doings. And, besides that, there was a quite new and hitherto unknown feeling in the heart of the Marchese Lamberto which made him shrink from any such encounter with his nephew, as remonstrances respecting his conduct with regard to Paolina would have occasioned;—a feeling which made it seem to him that he was the watched instead of the watcher; that suggested to him the fear that the first word he might utter upon the subject would be met by references to doings of his own.
An utterly unfounded fear. But so it is that conscience doth make cowards of us all.
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