F. Marion Crawford

“ 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." ”

“ I fell in love, once, with a northern fairy,—she was not German, but she came from Lombardy, you see,—and that is the reason why I lost Serveti and all the rest."
"But I have no Serveti to lose," objected Nino.
"You have a career as a musician to lose. It is not much of a career to be stamping about with a lot of figuranti and scene-shifters, and screaming yourself hoarse every night." I was angry because he laughed at my age. "But it is a career, after all, that you have chosen for yourself. If you get mixed up in an intrigue now, you may ruin yourself. ”

“ Mechanically I sank into the old green arm-chair, where she had sat but yesterday evening—she whom I had seen but twice, once in the theatre and once here, but of whom I had heard so much. And she was dead, so soon. If Nino could only have heard her last words and seen her last look he would have been more hurt when he heard of her sudden death. But he is of stone, that man, save for his love and his art. He seems to have no room left for sympathy with human ills, nor even for fear on his own account. Fear!—how I hate the word! Nino did not seem frightened at all when they took him away. ”

“ The tall count came forward under the raised curtains, limping and helping himself with his stick. His face was as gray and wooden as ever, but his moustaches had an irritated, crimped look that Nino did not like. The count barely nodded to the young man as he stood aside to let the old gentleman pass; his eyes turned mechanically to where the baroness sat. She was a woman who had no need to simulate passion in any shape, and it must have cost her a terrible effort to control the paroxysm of anger and shame and grief that had overcome her. ”

“ I am sure I do not know how I can ever tell it so quickly, but I will do my best, and you must have a little patience; for though I am not old, I am not young, and Nino's departure for Paris was a great shock to me, so that I do not like to remember it, and the very thought of it sickens me. If you have ever had any education, you must have seen an experiment in which a mouse is put in a glass jar, and all the air is drawn away with a pump, so that the poor little beast languishes and rolls pitifully on its side, gasping and wheezing with its tiny lungs for the least whiff of air. ”

“ For you see, he did not believe her.
"Now tell me, then, Signor Nino, are you in earnest in what you are doing? Do you really set your heart on doing this thing?"
"What?" asked Nino, annoyed at the persistence of the woman.
"Why need you be afraid to understand me? Can you not forgive me? Can you not believe in me that I will be your friend? I have always dreamed of being the friend of a great artist. Let me be yours, and believe me, the thing you have in your heart shall be done." ”

“ Benoni smiled, but both Hedwig and Nino looked at me in surprise.
"I only wished to say," returned Benoni, "that I consider you in the light of an interesting phenomenon. Nay, Signor Cardegna, do not look so fierce. I am an old man—"
"An old devil," said Nino hotly.
"An old fool," said I.
"An old reprobate," said Hedwig, from her corner, in deepest indignation.
"Precisely," returned Benoni, smilingly. "Many people have been good enough to tell me so before. Thanks, kind friends, I believe you with all my heart. Meanwhile, man, devil, fool, or reprobate, I am very old. ”

“ Nothing but a singer, who has not even appeared before the public, without a baiocco in the world or anything else but your voice. You are not even handsome."
"What difference does that make to a woman of heart?" retorted Nino angrily. "Let me only speak to her—"
"A thousand devils!" exclaimed De Pretis impatiently; "what good will you do by speaking to her? Are you Dante, or Petrarca, or a preacher—what are you? Do you think you can have a great lady's hand for the asking? Do you flatter yourself that you are so eloquent that nobody can withstand you?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ The baroness, who is as dark as he, blushed almost red, partly because she was angry, and partly because she was ashamed.
"What a boy you are!" she said, carelessly enough, and turned away to the window, pushing back one heavy curtain with her delicate hand, as if she would look out.
"Pardon me, signora, I am not a boy," said Nino, speaking to the back of her head as he stood behind her. "It is time we understood each other better. I love like a man and I hate like a man. I love someone very, much."
"Fortunate contessina!" laughed the baroness, mockingly, without turning round. ”

“ More, he was the singer of her dreams, who had for months filled her thoughts with music and her heart with a strange longing, being until now a voice Only. There he stood looking straight at her,—she was not mistaken,—as though to say, "I have done it for you, and for you only." A woman must be more than marble to feel no pride in the intimate knowledge that a great public triumph has been gained solely for her sake. She must be colder than ice if she cannot see her power when a conqueror loves her. ”

“ How can anybody in your position hope to marry a great lady, who is an heiress? Is it not true that it is all stuff and nonsense?"
"No, it is not true," cried Nino, setting his square jaw like a bit and speaking through his teeth. "I am ugly, you say; I am dark, and I have no position, or wealth, or anything of the kind. I am the son of a peasant and of a peasant's wife. I am anything you please, but I will marry her if I say I will. Do you think it is for nothing that you have taught me the language of Dante, of Petrarca, of Silvio Pellico? ”

“ Nino is a wonderful man, and I am convinced that there is more in him than music, which is well enough when one can be as great as he, but is not all the world holds. I am sure that massive head of his was not hammered so square and broad by the great hands that forge the thunderbolts of nations, merely that he should be a tenor and an actor, and give pleasure to his fellow-men. I see there the power and the strength of a broader mastery than that which bends the ears of a theatre audience. ”

“ At half-past eleven, at least two hours after supper, Nino wrapped himself in my old cloak and took the guitar under his arm. Rome is not a very safe place for midnight pranks, and so I made him take a good knife in his waistbelt; for he had confided to me where he was going. I tried to dissuade him from the plan, saying he might catch cold; but he laughed at me.
A serenade is an everyday affair, and in the street one voice sounds about as well as another. He reached the palace, and his heart sank when he saw Hedwig's window dark and gloomy. ”

“ It is vanity in either case, and the vanity of self-respect is perhaps a more dangerous thing than the vanity of self-love, though you may call it pride if you like, or give it any other high-sounding title. But the heart of the vain man is lighter than the heart of the proud. Probably Nino has always had much self-respect, but I doubt if it has made him very happy—until lately. True, he has genius, and does what he must by nature do or die, whereas I have not even talent, and I make myself do for a living what I can never do well. ”

“ But I never fell in love at first sight—and with a doll; really a wax doll, you know, like the Madonna in the presepio that they set up at the Ara Coeli, at Epiphany."
"A doll!" he cried. "Who is a doll, if you please?" We stopped at the corner of the street to argue it out.
"Do you think she is really alive?" I asked, laughing. Nino disdained to answer me, but he looked savagely from under the brim of his hat. "Look here," I continued, "women like that are only made to be looked at. They never love, for they have no hearts. It is lucky if they have souls, like Christians." ”

“ What difference does it make to society whether Nino Cardegna, the tenor was the son of a vine-dresser? Or what does the University care for the fact that I, Cornelio Grandi, am the last of a race as old as the Colonnas, and quite as honourable? What does Mariuccia care? What does anybody care? Corpo di Bacco! if we begin talking of race we shall waste as much time as would make us all great celebrities! I am not a celebrity—I never shall be now, for a man must begin at that trade young. It is a profession—being celebrated—and it has its signal advantages. ”

“ One day she stood and looked over the music as he sang, almost touching him, and his hair was so curly and soft to look at that she was seized with a desire to stroke it, as Mariuccia strokes the old gray cat for hours together. The action was quite involuntary, and her fingers rested only a moment on his head.
"It is so curly," she said, half playfully, half apologetically. But Nino started as though he had been stung, and his dark face grew pale. A girl could not have seemed more hurt at a strange man's touch. ”

“ And, truly, Nino Cardegna is a better man, for all his peasant blood, than I ever was; a better lover, and perhaps a better hater. There is his guitar, that he always leaves here, and it reminds me of him and his ways. Fourteen years he lived here with me, from child to boy and from boy to man, and now he is gone, never to live here any more. The end of it will be that I shall go and live with him, and Mariuccia will take her cat and her knitting, and her Lives of the Saints back to Serveti, to end her life in peace, where there are no professors and no singers. ”

“ She looked like an angel; and quite as cold, perhaps most of you would say. Diamonds are cold things, too, but they shine in the dark; whereas a bit of glass just lets the light through it, even if it is coloured red and green and put in a church window, and looks ever so much warmer than the diamond.
But though I saw her beauty and the light of her face, all in a moment, as though it had been a dream, I saw Nino, too; for I had missed him, and had supposed he had gone to the organ loft with De Pretis. But now, as the people kneeled to the benediction, imagine a little what he did ”

“ I was beginning to wonder whether Nino would come at all, and I can tell you I was glad to see the little caravan. Ugh! it is an ugly place to be alone in.
They rode up, and I went forward to meet them.
"Nino mio," said I, "you have made me pass a terrible time here. Thank Heaven, you are come; and the contessina, too! Your most humble servant, signorina." I bowed low and Hedwig bent a little forward, but the moon was just behind her, and I could not see her face.
"I did not think we should meet so soon, Signor Grandi. But I am very glad." ”