Tarantella

“ Nevertheless the theory of tarantella and tarantismo has been gravely discussed by old Italian writers, and a certain learned prelate of the fifteenth century, Niccolo Perotto, Archbishop of Siponto, alludes to the malignant cause of this dance-cure as “a species of speckled spider, dwelling in rents of the ground caused by excessive heat. It was not known in the time of our fore-fathers, but now it is very common in Apulia ... and is generally called Tarantula. Its bite seldom kills a man, yet it makes him half [pg 237] stupid, and affects him in a variety of ways. ”

“ The lunatic joyfully leapt out of his hammock, exclaiming, "Now I may go into the garden!" "Stay," said the count; "suppose before you go you dance the Tarantella." "Oh, yes!" exclaimed the lunatic, in a tone which showed that he received the proposal as the greatest possible indulgence; "I shall be delighted to dance the Tarantella." "Go and fetch Teresa and Gaetano," said the count to one of the keepers; then turning to me, he said, "Teresa is also one of our violent patients, and she sometimes gives us a great deal of trouble. ”

“ Miss Blind may be congratulated on 'Tarantella,' her first novel. In the récit (as we have called it) of the musician, Emanuel Sturm, nearly all the interest of the book is concentrated. The violinist, poor and unknown, finds himself at Capri. Accident brings him, one evening, to a frightened group of women, one of whom has just been bitten by the tarantula, and, according to the popular superstition, he is implored to play, in order to drive the poison out of her. ”

“ It was the last place in Italy where we were likely to have seen the Tarantella; but these simple people are improvident in lying, as in every thing else.
The patriarch had a curious spice of malice in him, which prompted him to speak evil of all, and to as many as he dared. After we had inspected the ruins of the emperor's villa, a clownish imbecile of a woman, professing to be the wife of the peasant who had made the excavations, came forth out of a cleft in the rock and received tribute of us—why, I do not know. ”

“ The Italians say that the Tarantula produces convulsions and frenzied dances in the person stung by her. Music is the only cure for this, and they tell us some tunes are better than others. The tarantella, a lively dance, probably owes its name to this idea of the Italian peasants. The story makes us feel like laughing, but, after all, the bite of the Tarantula may possibly bring on some nervous trouble which music will relieve; and possibly a very energetic dance makes the patient break out into a perspiration and so get rid of the poison. ”

“ Mina, the innocent girl, her friend, is well delineated, and Emanuel Sturm, the wonderful violinist and composer, for whose portrait Paganini has doubtless been available, is original, no less than his friend the painter."—British Quarterly, January, 1885.
"'Tarantella' is a very clever story, with plenty of action and not without tragic incidents. The author has also plenty of humour, and there is at least as much light as shade in the book. Mina is not less delightful than the Countess is objectionable, in spite of her beauty and her daring."—London Figaro, November 20, 1886. ”

“ The number of those affected by it increased beyond all belief, for whoever had either actually been, or even fancied that he had been, once bitten by a poisonous spider or scorpion, made his appearance annually wherever the merry notes of the Tarantella resounded. Inquisitive females joined the throng and caught the disease, not indeed from the poison of the spider, but from the mental poison which they eagerly received through the eye; and thus 118the cure of the Tarantati gradually became established as a regular festival of the populace, which was anticipated with impatient delight. ”

“ When this kind of inspiration laid hold of Chopin his playing assumed a distinctive character, whatever the kind of music he executed might be—dance-music or dreamy music, mazurkas or nocturnes, preludes or scherzos, waltzes or tarantellas, studies or ballades. He imprinted on them all one knows not what nameless colour, what vague appearance, what pulsations akin to vibration, that had almost no longer anything material about them, and, like the imponderables, seemed to act on one's being without passing through the senses. ”

“ There was a good view of Taranto across the water; the old town on its little island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the yellowish tints of the great new buildings which spread over the peninsula. With half-closed eyes, one could imagine the true Tarentum. Wavelets lapped upon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand years ago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man and goats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boats of fishermen floated silently. ”

“ At last Tarrano signified that we must go. It was upon me then to make an effort to draw back, to keep Elza and Maida at the palace with Georg and me. My heart was heavy with foreboding. Amid all this laughter and music—pleasure of the senses reigning supreme here in the Great City tonight—I could not miss a sense of impending evil. The slaans propelling the boats were stolid and grim. Not for them, this dalliance. Not for their women, this music and laughter, these daring costumes to display their beauty. The slaan women, drab with work, were slinking about unnoticed. ”

“ Does the learned doctor insinuate that the Italians owed their natural taste for music to this invasion of Tarantism?
“At the close of the fifteenth century we find that Tarantism had spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia, and that the fear of being bitten by venomous spiders had increased. Nothing short of death itself was expected from the wound which these insects inflicted; and if those who were bitten escaped with their lives, they were said to be pining away in a desponding state of lassitude. Many became weak-sighted or hard of hearing; some lost the power of speech ”

“ Always Tarrano was with us. We sat upon the palace balcony, we men smoking our arrant-cylinders. Tarrano talked and joked like a care-free youth. He was very courteous to Elza, with a holiday spirit upon him. But his eyes never relaxed; and often I could see him measuring her.
The aural lights mounted the sky. The holiday spirit which was on Tarrano was spreading everywhere throughout the city. Boats gayly bedecked—in such contrast to the funeral cortege of poor Wolfgar just the night before—began passing the palace on their way to the festival waters. Men and laughing girls thronged them. ”

“ Whereas Taranto, despite its situation, possesses no convenient beach, there are here, on either side of the town, leagues of shimmering sand lapped by tepid and caressing waves; it is a sunlit solitude; the land is your own, the sea your own, as far as eye can reach. One may well become an amphibian, at Cotrone.
The inhabitants of this town are well-mannered and devoid of the “ineffable” air of the Tarentines. But they are not a handsome race. ”

“ We might all come and go about the Great City at will. Apparently—to the public eye—allied to Tarrano. The Princess Maida—as before—hereditary honored ruler; with Tarrano guiding the business affairs of State, as on Earth our Presidents and their Councils rule the legendary Kings and Queens. The one ruling in fact; the other, an affair of pretty sentiment.
It was this condition which Tarrano now desired to bring about. With Georg already beloved for his medical knowledge; and flying rumors (started no doubt by Tarrano) that the handsome Earth man would some day marry their Princess. ”

“ Elza saw that they had come to an open space—an eminence rising above the forest. Underfoot was a stony soil; in places, bare black rock with an outcropping of red, like the cinnabar from which on Earth we melt the Heavy-metal. [23]
Tarrano faced her. "Nature, my Lady Elza, is fair to my purpose. I knew I would find some such deposit as this." He turned his face to one side attentively, and darted his light—harmlessly yellow now—to where a lone tree showed its great leaves beginning to waver in a night breeze.
"Nature is with us! See there, my Elza! A wind is coming—a wind from us to—them!" ”

“ An Earth man of my own race! What did it mean?
I was perturbed—frightened. But I did not demur when Tarrano led us to his flower-bedecked barge. Of what use?
We were paired. Georg with Maida; Elza with Tarrano. And I? Tarrano told me curtly—and with a smile of ironic amusement—that when we reached the festival so handsome a man as I would have no trouble engaging the attention of some Venus maiden.
On cushions in the barge we reclined while our slaans poled us along the streets. Tarrano was feeding sweets to Elza as though they were gay young lovers. Poor little Elza! She was frightened. ”

“ A quivering beam of yellow light; then Elza saw that upon occasion, as Tarrano's finger slid a lever, the beam narrowed, intensified to a bright lavender. And now where it struck, the vegetation withered. Blackened, sometimes burst into tiny flame, and parted thus before them as they advanced.
The jungle was silent; yet, as Elza listened, beneath the crackle of the burning twigs she could hear the tiny myriad voices of insect life. Startled voices as the heat of Tarrano's beam struck them. Rustling leaves; breaking twigs; things scurrying and sliding away, unseen in the darkness. ”

“ Tarrano remained grave. "You are a humorist. And a clever young fellow, Georg Brende. You—as Elza's brother—and as your father's son with your medical knowledge—you can be of great use to me. Suppose I offer you a place by my side always? To share with me—and with the Lady Elza—these conquests.... Wait! It is not the part of wisdom to decide until you have all the facts. I shall confide in you one of my plans. The publics of Venus, Mars and the Earth—they think this everlasting life, as they call it, is to be shared with them." ”

“ It is not out of place to remark here, that about the same time that Tarantism attained its greatest height in Italy, the bite of venomous spiders was more feared in distant parts of Asia likewise, than it had ever been within the memory of man. There was this difference, however, that the symptoms supervening on the occurrence of this accident were not accompanied by the Apulian nervous disorder, which, as has been shown in the foregoing pages, had its origin rather in the melancholic temperament of the inhabitants of the south of Italy, than in the nature of the tarantula poison itself. ”

“ The breeze grew—a breeze blowing directly over the forest to where in the distance the lights of the Great City showed plainly. Tarrano added:
"I had thought to create the wind." He tapped his belt. "Create the wind to carry our onslaught. But you see, it is unnecessary. Nature is kind, and far more efficacious than our man-made devices."
"Jac! Danger!" She stood there in the breeze, watching Tarrano—his purpose as yet no more than guessed—praying that I might receive her warning.
Tarrano selected his spot—a tiny little cone of rock no bigger than his thumb. He beckoned Elza. ”

“ Lady Elza," Tarrano repeated. "You will know where we are presently; we are closer to human habitation than you would think."
Elza's heart pounded. As they were descending she had noticed a glow of light in the sky ahead. As though by intuition now, she seemed to realize that they were not far from the Great City. Her thoughts leaped to me—Jac Hallen—there in Maida's palace. Tarrano's grim, sinister purpose was as yet unknown to her. But she guessed that in it, danger impended for me—for all of us in the Great City.
"Jac! Danger! Jac! Danger!" ”

“ Tarrano insisted. "My spy, Ahla—you remember her, the Lady Elza's maid for so long? She is here in Venia; she tells me of your knowledge and skill with your father's apparatus. So you see, I realize I have two to guard—the model itself, and you, who know its secret."
He now became more openly alert and earnest than I had ever seen him. The light from the tube along the side wall edged his lean, serious face with its silver glow. "I've a proposition for you, Georg Brende. Between men, such things can be put bruskly. Your sister—her personal decision will take time. ”

“ Otherwise, I would hate to take the chance of having this gadget seen in the daylight."
"All right, so we're out in the desert," said Taranto. "How does this ship you arranged for pick us up? We'll still be out for the count."
"I plan to tell them where to touch down. I can talk louder by radio, you know, than I can to you now. They will grab your 'bodies' and scramble for space. Against the sunset, they may not even be seen from the city. If they are, I never heard of them."
"Who are they?" asked Taranto.
"Some bunch hired for the job by the D.I.R.'s Department 99. ”

“ Tarrano drew Elza with him. Tara led the way. Through glowing white hallways, an arcade; down steps and an incline—to burst at last through a tunnel-like passage into a room.
"So? What is this, Cretar?"
A room littered with apparatus. A dozen men were about. Men scantily dressed in this interior heat. Short, squat men of the Cold Country; flat-nosed, heavy faces; hair long to the base of the neck. In a corner stood the Brende instrument, fully erected. A light from it seemed penetrating the bared chest of a man who was at that moment standing in its curative rays. ”