Rossi

“ Rossi slept as little on Sunday night as on the night before. The horrible doubts which he had driven away were sucking at his heart like a vampire. He tried to invent excuses for Roma. She was intimidated; she was a woman and she could not help herself. Useless, and worse than useless! "I thought the daughter of Joseph Roselli would have died first," he told himself.
The good-natured warder brought him another newspaper in the morning, the Secolo, an organ of his own party. ”

“ Madame de Rossi gives the utmost value to the feeling of the part, without forgetting that the first duty is to give also utmost value to each note, and avoiding the gusty utterance, the spasmodic gesture, and clap-traps "ad captandum vulgus," her marvellous tones are evolved in all their purity, beauty of modulation, and all-surpassing agility. ”

“ Adieu!"
"Roma," said Rossi, "if I do not take you with me it is partly because I want your help in Rome. Think of the poor people I leave behind me in poverty and in prison. Think of Elena when she awakes in the morning, alone with her terrible grief. Some one should be here to represent me for a time at all events—to take the messages I must send, the instructions I shall have to give. It will be a dangerous task, Roma, a task that can only be undertaken by some one who loves me, some one who...." ”

“ The short day had closed in when Rossi was returning home. Screamers in the streets were crying early editions of the evening papers, and the cafés in the Corso were full of officers and civilians, sipping vermouth and reading glowing accounts of the King's enthusiastic reception. Pitiful! Most pitiful! And the man who dared to tell the truth must be prepared for any consequences. ”

“ Roma.
"P. S.—My gentleman has good features, fine eyes, and a wonderful voice, and though I truly believe he trembles at the sight of a woman and has never been in love in his life, he has an astonishing way of getting at one. But I could laugh to think how little execution his fusillade will make in this direction."
"Honourable Rossi!" said Felice's sepulchral voice behind her, and at that moment David Rossi stepped into the studio. ”

“ If she told a lie, Rossi would insult the Baron, the Baron would challenge Rossi, and they would fight with all the consequences the Baron had foretold.
"Roma," said Rossi, "forgive me for putting the question, but a falsehood like this, affecting the character of a good woman, ought to be stopped in the slanderer's throat. Don't be afraid, dear. You know I will believe you before anybody in the world. What the man says is a lie, isn't it?"
Roma stood for a moment looking in a helpless way from Rossi to the Baron, and from the Baron back to Rossi. ”

“ And Rocco told me that Sontag and Pozzolini were doubtless poisoned by Count Rossi, and that Ullman was the instigator. Rossi artfully attributed their sudden death to cholera, but the rumor flew on the wings of lightning, that Rossi was their murderer, and he fled for his life to New York, with all her jewels, and went to Europe. ”

“ After many years of undimmed happiness and prosperity, changes take place, and by one of those extraordinary freaks of fortune by which the highest and the lowest reverse their positions, we find the Countess Rossi—the Sontag of our youth—compelled to have recourse to that profession of which she had been so immaculate an ornament, to retrieve a broken fortune and re-erect the altars of her home. ”

“ Having set forth our claims to the attention of those to whom we address ourselves, we shall now rapidly trace the outline of the singularly eventful career of Countess Rossi. The interest its moving incidents, so singularly varied, have always inspired, are now increased tenfold by new features, totally unparalleled in the history of the lyrical stage. To behold this distinguished lady return to the stage, after enjoying undisturbed for many years, and in the most exalted rank, the love and esteem of the greatest personages of Europe, is a truly singular and affecting event ”

“ In the evening I went to the theatre to see the famous harlequin, Rossi, but I considered his reputation was greater than he deserved. I passed the same judgment on the boasted Florentine elocution; I did not care for it at all. I enjoyed seeing Pertici; having become old, and not being able to sing any more, he acted, and, strange to say, acted well; for, as a rule, all singers, men and women, trust to their voice and care nothing for acting, so that an ordinary cold entirely disables them for the time being. ”

“ Rossi is both very bad and very fine; bad where anything like taste and discretion is required, but “all there,” and more than there, in violent passion. The last act reduced too much, however, to mere exhibitional sensibility. The interesting thing to me was to observe the Italian conception of the part—to see how crude it was, how little it expressed the hero’s moral side, his depth, his dignity—anything more than his being a creature terrible in mere tantrums. ”

“ There was a little tremor in the first words of that message of the dying mother to her libertine son, but that was soon lost in the earnestness of her own enjoyment of the music; and as she threw her whole soul and voice into the last reiteration of the phrase, “Sa mère priera pour lui!” those two men who had so long made a mere trade of the beautiful art were subdued, enchanted, conquered entirely. There was a decided moisture in Rossi’s blue eyes, and the composer for five whole minutes ceased to remember the existence of the great Hugo Rossini Smith! ”

“ The gardens down the long corridor lay dark in the shadows, but the fountain with sculptured horses, the splashing water, and the front of the building were white under the electric lamps as if from a dazzling moon.227
Before turning into the silent courtyard of the Consulta, Rossi paused and listened to the noises that came from the city. Men were singing and women were screaming. The rattle of musketry mingled with the cries of children. And over all were the steady downfall of the snow and the dull rumble of distant thunder. ”

“ Young Rossi was sent to the studio of Giovanni Battista Locatelli, an Italian sculptor in London. On completing his apprenticeship he remained with his master for wages of eighteen shillings a week, till he found more lucrative employment with Messrs. Coade & Seeley at Lambeth. He entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1781, and gained the silver medal in November of that year In 1784 he gained the gold medal for a group, ‘Venus conducting Helen to Paris.’ In 1785 he won the travelling studentship, and went to Rome for three years. ”

“ Although he has been more than a quarter of a century at work, he is still a hale man; and if Piedmontese brutality or revolutionary barbarism does not prevent him, he may yet make more splendid progress in his learned studies. Rossi has wonderful powers of observation, united with great calmness and perseverance in investigation, ardent love of science, and vast erudition. ”

“ Twenty-five or six years after the registration of the child David Rossi in Rome, a man, apparently twenty-five or six years of age, giving the name of David Rossi, arrived in England from America. He called at a baker's shop in Soho to ask for Roma Roselli, the daughter of Doctor Roselli, left behind in London when the exile returned to173 Italy. ”

“ Next an elaborate essay by the veteran Giosuè Carducci, largely combatting Rossi's conclusions as to the literary evolution of the form, and bringing forward a good deal of fresh evidence, appeared in the Nuova Antologia for September, 1894, and was reprinted with additions and corrections as the second of three papers in the author's pamphlet Su l'Aminta di T. Tasso (Firenze, 1896) . To this Rossi rejoined, effectively as it seems to me, in the Giornale storico della letteratura italiana (1898, xxxi. p. 108) . ”

“ Angelelli disappeared, the acute cries outside died away, the scurrying of flying feet was no more heard, and Roma was still on the stool before the fire, moaning behind the hands that covered her face. The Baron came near to her and touched her with a caressing gesture.
"I'm sorry, my child, very sorry. Rossi is a dreamer, not a statesman, but he is none the less troublesome on that account No wonder he has fascinated you, as he has fascinated the people, but time will wipe away an impression like213 that. The best thing that can happen for both of you is that he should be arrested to-night. ”

“ Lumley has brought us. I have said that Lumley was clever and energetic—cleverer, perhaps, than you thought him. He is a better manager than you would suspect. For the last month, we have been fancying he was going to let us hear the Countess Rossi. I too believed it—but to-day I am convinced he has taken us all in. No! The young girl, whom I heard last Tuesday at the Conservatoire, is not, cannot be, the Countess Rossi. Ten years ago, at St. Petersburg, I had the honor of both seeing and hearing the Countess Rossi. ”

“ In the drawer of a bureau she had found a revolver which Rossi had left with her on the night he went away. His name had been inscribed on it by the persons who sent it as a present, but Roma gave no thought to that. Rossi was in prison, therefore beyond suspicion, and she was entirely indifferent to detection. When she had done what she intended to do she would give herself up. She would avow everything, seek no means of justification, and ask for no mercy even in the presence of death. Her only defence would be that the Baron, who was guilty, had to be sent to the supreme386 tribunal. ”

“ She always SINGS, and does not depend on mere strength of lungs—erroneously called "power." She never strains her delicate organ—that sweet instrument so susceptible of every shade of expression. How fortunate for our young singers that, like the nuns in Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, she left the tomb of the seven ancestors, bestowed by the King of Prussia upon the Countess de Rossi, to teach them the wide difference between singing and screaming, and to show how we all, during the last ten years, have been listening to and adoring false prophets. ”

“ The fountain, being of marble, had to be put in a dark cellar under the lodge of the old Garibaldian. Only one part of it was carried upstairs. This was the mould for the bust of Rossi and the block of stone for the head of Christ.
Except for her dog, Roma went alone to the Piazza Navona, Felice having returned to the Baron and Natalina being dismissed. The old woman was to clean and cook for her and Roma was to shop for herself. It didn't take the neighbours long to sum up the situation. She was Rossi's wife. They began to call her Signora. ”

“ Rock nodded as he noted the stolid faces of the fishermen peering over the rail. Rossi had his regular crew. Still, one could never be too careful. For a moment he appeared to deliberate. Then he said:
"Good idea, Blankovitch, we're short on high-grade stuff."
The manager moved at once to the receiving-vat and pulled the grating over the traveling conveyer which carried the fish into the cannery. Then he opened a valve at the bottom of the tank.
"All right, Rossi," he said. "Dump them in." ”

“ Roma's foot had ceased to beat on the floor, and she was rising in her chair.
"That man," said the Baron, "the only human being who ever thought it worth while to look up the grave of the poor suicide, Leonora Rossi, the mother of David Leone, was David Rossi! ”

“ But only under the peculiar circumstances of Madame de Rossi's eventful career—only in presence of a reputation which the breath of scandal has never dared assail, and of social qualities and graces which render her an acquisition to any circle—can it occur to a singer to pass from the boards of the Opera to the most exclusive of London's saloons, to be welcomed as an equal by those who, a few minutes previously, applauded her as an actress. ”

“ A collection of cantatas published in 1646 describes him as musician to Cardinal Antonio Berberini, and G. A. Perti in 1688 speaks of him along with Carissimi and Cesti as “the three greatest lights of our profession.” Rossi is noteworthy principally for his chamber cantatas, which are among the finest that the 17th century produced. A large quantity are in MS. in the British Museum and in Christ Church library, Oxford. ”

“ Some one then asked Rossi what he thought of the Comédie Frarçaise.
"The Comédie Française," said Rossi, "like every school of acting that is founded on art, and not on Nature, is falling into decadence. It is ruled by tradition, not by the realities of life and passion. One incident that I beheld at a rehearsal at that theatre in 1855 revealed the usual process by which their great performers study their art. I was then fulfilling an [pg 644] engagement in Paris with Ristori, and, though only twenty-two years of age, I was her leading man and stage-manager as well. ”

“ After the concert, offering his arm to his lovely and gifted guest, he promenaded with her through the saloons, presenting her to all the great people; and the next day the empress invited the countess to join her private circle, and to dine with her en famille. It is said that the empress is even more charmed with the sweet and gentle manners of Madame Rossi, than she was with all her surpassing talents. ”

“ Minghelli, the Grand Hotel, the reference in London, and the dead-and-buried nightmare have led up to and compassed everything! Prepare for a great surprise—David Rossi120 is not David Rossi, but a condemned man who has no right to live in Italy! Prepare for a still greater surprise—he has no right to live at all! ”

“ Rossi wrote the words for an Italian cantata which was to be composed for the occasion. But what lay nearest his heart was the composition of an opera in Vienna; his conviction of his vocation as a dramatic composer having been strengthened FIRST ATTEMPTS IN VIENNA. [188] by the performances at the Vienna theatre, and the lively interest taken in them by the public. "My only entertainment," he writes to his sister (July 4, 1781) , "consists in the theatre. I wish you could see a tragedy performed here! I know no other theatre where every kind of play is given to perfection. ”