Consuelo

By George Sand

Rediscover the charm of old-world Europe and the transformative power of music in "Consuelo," an evocative novel penned by the trailblazing French author George Sand. Set against the backdrop of 18th-century Bohemia, the novel unveils the captivating journey of the eponymous heroine, Consuelo, a talented and virtuous singer. Rising from the Veni

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hawthorne Classics
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088160411

George Sand

George Sand (1804-1876), born Armandine Aurore Lucille Dupin, was a French novelist who was active during Europe’s Romantic era. Raised by her grandmother, Sand spent her childhood studying nature and philosophy. Her early literary projects were collaborations with Jules Sandeau, who co-wrote articles they jointly signed as J. Sand. When making her solo debut, Armandine adopted the pen name George Sand, to appear on her work. Her first novel, Indiana was published in 1832, followed by Valentine and Jacques. During her career, Sand was considered one of the most popular writers of her time.

Book preview

I

Yes, yes, young ladies, shake your heads as much as you please; the best and the wisest of you all is—But I think I won't say, for she is the only one in my class who has any modesty, and I should be afraid that, if I called her by name, she would instantly lose that rare virtue which I wish that all of you had.

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," sang Costanza, with an unabashed air.

"Amen," sang all the other girls in chorus.

You wicked wretch! said Clorinda, with a pretty pout, tapping lightly with the handle of her fan the singing master's bony, wrinkled fingers as they lay listlessly on the keyboard of the organ.

Psha! rejoined the old professor, with the utterly disillusioned air of a man who has been exposed six hours a day for forty years to the teasing and cajoleries of several generations of children. It is true none the less, he added, replacing his spectacles in their case and his snuff-box in his pocket, without looking up at the mocking, indignant swarm, that the virtuous, docile, studious, attentive, good child to whom I refer is not you, Signora Clorinda, nor you, Signora Costanza, nor you either, Signora Zulietta, nor Rosina, and Michela, least of all.

In that case, it's I. No, it's I. Not at all; isn't it I? I! I! cried half a hundred blondes or brunettes, in their silvery or shrill voices, pouncing on the old man like a swarm of screaming gulls on an ill-fated shellfish left high and dry on the beach by the retiring tide.

The shellfish, that is to say the maestro—and I maintain that no metaphor could be more appropriate to his angular movements, his mother-of-pearl eyes, his cheekbones covered with red blotches, and, above all, to the numberless little stiff white pointed curls of the professorial wig—the maestro, I say, thrice forced back on the seat after rising to go away, but as calm and impassive as a shellfish nurtured and hardened in the tempest, held his ground for a long time against their entreaties to say which of his pupils deserved the praises of which he had just shown himself so lavish. At last, yielding as with regret to requests which his own malice provoked, he took the baton with which he was accustomed to mark time and used it to force a passage through his undisciplined flock and arrange them in two serried ranks. Then, passing gravely between that double row of giddy pates, he stationed himself at the farther end of the organ-loft, in front of a small girl who was sitting on a stair. She, with her elbows on her knees and her fingers in her ears, in order not to be distracted by the noise, was studying her lesson in an undertone to avoid disturbing anybody, twisted and contorted like a little monkey; he, solemn and triumphant, with one foot forward and arm extended, like the shepherd Paris awarding the apple, not to the loveliest, but to the best.

"Consuelo? the Spaniard?" cried the young choristers with one voice, surprised beyond measure at first. Then a universal roar of laughter, truly Homeric, brought the flush of indignation at last to the professor's majestic brow.

Little Consuelo, whose stuffed ears had heard nothing of all this dialogue, and whose distraught eyes wandered here and there, seeing nothing, so absorbed was she by her work, remained for several moments insensible to all this uproar. But at last, discovering that she was the object of universal attention, she let her hands fall from her ears to her knees, and her music from her knees to the floor; and there she sat, petrified by amazement, not confused, but somewhat frightened, rising finally to look behind her to see if some strange object or absurd personage were not, rather than herself, the cause of this noisy merriment.

Consuelo, said the maestro, taking her hand, without offering any explanation, "come, that's a good girl, sing me Pergolese's Salve Regina, which you have learned in a fortnight, and which Clorinda has been studying a year."

Consuelo, without replying, without a trace of fear or pride or embarrassment, followed the singing-master to the organ, where he resumed his seat and, with an air of triumph, gave his young pupil the pitch. Thereupon Consuelo, simply and with perfect ease, sent forth, under the lofty arches of the cathedral, the pure tones of the loveliest voice that had ever awakened their echoes. She sang the Salve Regina, without a single failure of memory, without a note that was not absolutely true, full, sustained, or cut short as the score required; and following with passive exactitude the instructions which her accomplished teacher had given her, giving expression with her powerful intelligence to the goodman's judicious and straightforward ideas, she did, with the inexperience and heedlessness of a child what knowledge, experience and enthusiasm would not have enabled a consummate singer to do: she sang perfectly.

II

These things took place at Venice, about a hundred years ago, in the church of the Mendicanti, where the illustrious maestro Porpora had just been conducting a rehearsal of his great Vespers, which he was to direct on the following Sunday, the feast of the Assumption. The young choristers whom he had scolded so roundly were children from the schools, where they were taught at the expense of the State, to be endowed thereafter by the State, either for marriage or for the cloister, says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who listened in admiration to their beautiful voices in the same church, at about the same time. You remember these details only too well, readers, and a charming incident described by him in connection therewith in Book VIII. of his Confessions. I shall take care not to transcribe here those fascinating pages, after reading which you certainly could not resolve to return to me; and I, were I in your place, should have the same difficulty, dear reader. I trust, therefore, that you have not the Confessions at hand at this moment, and I resume my narrative.

All these young women were not actually poor, for it is quite certain that, despite the great integrity of the management, some few found their way into the class rather as a speculation than because they really needed to receive at the public expense an artistic education and the means of earning a livelihood. That is why some of them allowed themselves to forget the blessed laws of equality, by virtue of which they had been allowed to take their places furtively on the same benches with their poorer sisters. In like manner all of them did not accomplish the austere projects of the Republic concerning their future destiny. From time to time one of them would sever the bond, having received the gratuitous education, and would renounce the dowry in order to seek a brilliant fortune elsewhere. The government, seeing that this was inevitable, had sometimes admitted to the courses in music the children of poor artists whose migratory existence did not permit them to make a long stay in Venice. Of this number was little Consuelo, who was born in Spain and had reached Italy by way of St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Mexico, Archangel, or by some other more direct road known to gypsies alone.

She was a gypsy, however, only by profession and metaphorically; for by race she was neither Gitana, nor Hindoo, nor had she a drop of Israelitish blood. She was of good Spanish stock, doubtless of Moorish origin, for she was quite dark, and her whole nature was marked by a tranquillity in which there was no trace of the characteristics of the nomad races. Not that I mean to speak slightingly of those races. If I had invented the character of Consuelo, I do not pretend that I would not have had her descend from Israel or from some even more remote stock; but she was made from the loins of Ishmael, as was evident in every feature of her character. I never saw her, for I am not a hundred years old, but I have been told so, and I am unable to contradict it. She had not that feverish petulance interrupted by fits of apathetic languor which distinguishes the zingarella. She had not the insinuating inquisitiveness and the obstinate craze for begging of the indigent ebbrea. She was as placid as the water of the lagoons, and at the same time as active as the light gondolas which constantly flit across their surface.

As she grew very fast and her mother was quite destitute, she always wore dresses a year too short for her; which fact imparted to her long fourteen-year-old legs, accustomed to show themselves in public, a sort of untutored grace and freedom of movement which were pleasant yet pitiful to see. You could not say if her foot was small, it was so badly shod. On the other hand, her figure, imprisoned in bodices that had become too narrow and were split at every seam, was as slender and pliant as a palm-tree, but shapeless, without rounded outlines, and destitute of charm. The poor girl thought little about it, accustomed as she was to be called monkey, gourd, black-a-moor, by the light-haired, white-skinned, buxom daughters of the Adriatic. Her round, sallow, insignificant face would have attracted no attention, were it not that her short, thick hair, pushed back behind her ears, in connection with her air of seriousness and of indifference to all external objects, gave her a certain singularity of aspect that was by no means attractive. Unattractive faces rapidly lose what little power of attraction they may possess. Their owners being objects of indifference to others, soon become so to themselves, and assume a heedless expression, which repels the eye more and more. Beauty keeps watch upon itself, attends to itself, assists itself, gazes at itself, and constantly poses, so to speak, in an imaginary mirror planted in front of itself. Ugliness forgets itself and becomes careless. But there are two sorts of ugliness: one which suffers and protests unceasingly against general disapproval by chronic anger and envy; this is the only genuine ugliness; the other is ingenuous and heedless, chooses its course, neither avoids nor invites criticism, and wins the heart while it offends the eye: such was Consuelo's ugliness. Generous persons who became interested in her regretted at first that she was not pretty; and then, thinking better of it, said as they took her head in their hands with the familiar manner one does not assume with beauty:

Why, do you know, you have the look of a dear good creature?

And Consuelo was well content, although she knew perfectly well that that meant: And you have nothing more.

The young and comely gentleman who had offered her holy water remained standing near the basin until the last of the scolari had passed him by, one after another. He scrutinized them all with much attention, and when the loveliest of them, Clorinda, passed him, he gave her holy water with his fingers, in order to have the pleasure of touching hers. The girl blushed with pride and walked on, bestowing on him one of those glances of blended shame and boldness which express neither modesty nor pride.

As soon as they were all inside the convent, the gallant patrician returned to the nave and accosted the professor, who was coming down more slowly from the organ-loft.

By the body of Bacchus! he cried, "you must tell me, my dear professor, which of your pupils sang the Salve Regina?"

Why do you wish to know, Count Zustiniani? rejoined the professor, leaving the church with him.

To congratulate you on her account, replied the nobleman. For a long time I have been following, not only your vespers, but even your everyday exercises; for you know what an admirer I am of sacred music. Well, this is the first time I have heard Pergolese sung so perfectly; and as for the voice, it is certainly the most beautiful I have ever heard in my life.

"Cristo! I should say as much," rejoined the professor, taking a huge pinch of snuff with dignified self-complacency.

Pray tell me the name of the divine creature who cast me into such ecstasies. Despite your severity and constant complaints, one may fairly say that you have made your school one of the best in all Italy; your choruses are excellent, and your solos very respectable; but the music that you give is so grand, so severely classic, that young girls are very rarely able to make one feel all its beauties.

They do not make others feel them, said the professor sadly, because they do not feel them themselves! We have no lack of fresh, well-modulated voices of wide compass, thank God! but as to musical natures—alas! how rare and incomplete they are!

You possess at least one who is admirably endowed: the voice is magnificent, the expression perfect, the science remarkable. Tell me her name?

She gave you pleasure, did she not? said the professor, evading the question.

She took possession of my heart, she wrung tears from me, and by such simple means, by effects so entirely natural, that at first I could not understand it at all. And then I remembered what you had told me so many times while teaching me your divine art, O my dear master! and for the first time I understood how absolutely right you were.

What was it that I told you? queried the maestro, with an air of triumph.

You told me, replied the count, that, in the arts, the great, the true, the beautiful was the simple.

"I certainly told you also that there were the brilliant, the skilful and the studied, and that there was often good reason for applauding and noticing those qualities."

To be sure; but there is a deep gulf, you said, between those secondary qualities and the manifestation of true genius. Well, dear master, your singer stands alone on one side and all the rest on the other.

That is true, and it is well said, observed the professor, rubbing his hands.

Her name? said the count.

Whose name? queried the cunning professor.

"Per Santo Dio! the name of the siren or, rather, of the archangel whom I have just heard."

What do you propose to do with her name? retorted Porpora sternly.

Signor Professor, why do you wish to keep it a secret from me?

I will tell you why, if you begin by telling me why you are so persistent in asking for it.

Is not that a very natural and truly irresistible feeling which arouses the desire to know, to see and to call by name the objects of our admiration?

Very good; but that is not your sole reason. Allow me to contradict you to that extent, my dear count. You are a great enthusiast about music, and an excellent connoisseur, I am well aware; but you are, above all else, proprietor of the San Samuel theatre. It is with you a matter of pride, even more than of pecuniary interest, to attract to your stage the noblest talents and finest voices in Italy. You are well aware that we give good lessons; that it is only with us that earnest and faithful study is done, and great musicians are made. You have already taken Corilla from us; and, as she may be taken from you any day by an engagement at some other theatre, you come prowling about our school to see if we have not trained some new Corilla, whom you are all ready to capture. That is the truth, signor count; confess that I have told the truth.

Even if it were so, dear maestro, replied the count, with a smile, what does it matter to you and what harm do you see in it?

I see this very serious harm, signor count, that you corrupt and ruin the poor creatures.

Oho! what mean you by that, ferocious professor? Since when have you constituted yourself guardian of these fragile virtues?

I mean what I ought to mean, signor count, and I do not worry about their virtue or their fragility; but I do care about their talent, which you prostitute and degrade on your stages, by giving them paltry, vulgar music to sing. Is it not a shame and an abomination to see that Corilla, who began by comprehending serious art with great intelligence, descend from the sacred to the profane, from prayer to badinage, from the altar to the three-legged stool, from the sublime to the ridiculous, from Allegri and Palestrina to Albinoni and Apollini, the barber?

You refuse, then, in your puritanism, to give me the name of this girl, concerning whom I cannot possibly have any ulterior views, as I have no idea whether she possesses any of the qualities essential for the stage?

I absolutely refuse.

And you think that I shall not discover it?

Alas! you will discover it if you are determined to do so; but I will do my utmost to prevent your taking her away from us.

Well, master, you are half beaten already, for I have seen your divinity, divined her identity, recognized her.

Indeed? said the master, with an air of suspicion and reserve; are you quite sure of that?

My eyes and my heart revealed her to me, and I will draw her portrait for you, to convince you. She is tall—the tallest of all your pupils, I think; her skin is as white as the snow of Friuli and pink as the horizon at dawn of a fine day; she has golden hair, azure eyes, is comfortably plump, and wears on her finger a small ruby which burned me as it touched my hand, like a spark from a magic fire.

Bravo! cried Porpora, with a cunning leer. In that case I have nothing to conceal; the beauty's name is Clorinda. Go and make her your seductive offers; give her gold, diamonds and gewgaws. You will probably engage her for your troupe, and she will perhaps be able to replace Corilla; for the audiences of your present-day theatres prefer beautiful shoulders to beautiful notes, and bold eyes to superior intelligence.

Can it be that I am mistaken, my dear master? said the count, a little confused. Can it be that Clorinda is simply a commonplace beauty?

And what if my siren, my divinity, my archangel, or whatever it pleases you to call her, should prove to be anything but beautiful? rejoined the master, mischievously.

If she were deformed, I would beg you never to show her to me, for my illusion would be destroyed too cruelly. If she were simply ugly, I could still adore her; but I would not engage her for my theatre, because talent without beauty is sometimes only a misfortune, a constant struggle, torture for a woman. What are you looking at, maestro? Why do you stop?

Here we are at the landing where the gondolas are usually stationed, and I don't see one. What are you looking at yourself, count?

I am looking to see if yonder young fellow, whom you see sitting with a decidedly unattractive small girl on the steps of the landing-place, is not my protégé Anzoleto, the handsomest and brightest of our young plebeians. Look at him, dear maestro; you are interested in him as well as myself. That boy has the finest tenor voice in Venice; he is passionately fond of music, and incredibly anxious to get ahead. I have meant for a long time to speak to you about him and to ask you to give him some lessons. I do really look to him to sustain the success of my theatre, and within a few days I hope to be well rewarded for my trouble. Hola, Zoto! come here, my boy, and let me present you to the illustrious Maestro Porpora.

Anzoleto lifted his bare legs out of the water, in which they were carelessly dangling while he was intent on piercing with a great needle some of the pretty shells to which the Venetians give the poetical name of sea flowers. His only garments were a very threadbare pair of breeches and a shirt of fine linen, but sadly torn, through which could be seen his white shoulders, modelled like those of a little antique Bacchus. He had the Greek type of beauty of a young Faun, and his face presented the curious blending—albeit very frequent in those creations of heathen sculptors—of a dreamy melancholy and a satirical recklessness. His hair, which, although fine, was very thick, and of a bright golden hue, slightly reddened by the sun, fell in innumerable dense, short curls around his alabaster neck. All his features were incomparably perfect, but there was, in the piercing glance of his inky-black eyes, a something too bold which did not please the professor.

The boy rose quickly at Zustiniani's call, threw all his shells in the lap of the girl who sat beside him, and while she, quite undisturbed, continued to thread them, interspersing them with little golden pearls, he went to the count and kissed his hand, according to the custom of the country.

He is a handsome fellow, in very truth, said the pro

fessor, giving him a little tap on the cheek. But he seems to me to be engaged in amusements that are decidedly puerile for his age, for he is fully eighteen, is he not?

"Almost nineteen, sior profesor, replied Anzoleto, in the Venetian dialect; but I am not playing with shells; I am just helping little Consuelo, who makes necklaces of them."

Consuelo, said the master, walking toward his pupil, with the count and Anzoleto, I did not think that you had a taste for finery.

Oh! it's not for myself, signor professor, replied Consuelo, half rising, and taking great care not to drop the shells from her apron into the water; I do it to sell them, and buy rice and maize.

She is poor and supports her mother, said Porpora. Look you, Consuelo; when you and your mother are in straits, you must come to me; but I forbid you to beg, do you hear?

"Oh! you don't need to forbid her doing that, sior profesor, said Anzoleto, eagerly; she wouldn't do it; at all events I would prevent her."

But you have nothing, have you? said the count.

Nothing but your kindness, most illustrious signor; but we go halves, the little one and I.

Is she a relation of yours?

No, she's a foreigner, she is Consuelo.

Consuelo? what a curious name! said the count.

A fine name, most illustrious, replied Anzoleto; it means consolation.

Good. She seems to be a friend of yours?

She is my betrothed, signor.

Already? The idea of these children thinking of marriage!

We shall be married the day you sign my engagement at the San Samuel theatre, most illustrious.

In that case you still have a long time to wait, my children.

Oh! we will wait, said Consuelo, with the playful calm of innocence.

The count and the maestro amused themselves a few moments more with the innocence and the artless rejoinders of the young couple; then, having given Anzoleto an appointment at the professor's on the morrow to have his voice tried, they walked away, leaving him to his momentous occupations.

What do you think of that little girl? the professor asked Zustiniani.

I saw her before, a little while ago, and I thought her ugly enough to justify the axiom: 'In the eyes of a man of eighteen, every woman is lovely.'

Very good, rejoined the professor; in that case I can tell you that your divine songstress, your siren, your mysterious beauty was Consuelo.

She? that dirty child? that thin, black grasshopper? impossible, maestro!

"Herself, signor count. Would not she make a most seductive prima donna?"

The count stopped, turned round, examined Consuelo once more at a distance and cried, clasping his hands in comical distress:

Just God! canst Thou make such mistakes and pour the fire of genius into such ill-shaped heads!

So you renounce your guilty projects, do you? said the professor.

Assuredly.

You promise me?

Oh! I swear it, replied the count.

III

Born under the sky of Italy, brought up by hazard like a bird of the sea-shore, an orphan, poor, abandoned, yet happy in the present and hopeful for the future, like a love-child as he doubtless was, Anzoleto, the handsome youth of nineteen, who passed all his days with little Consuelo, in absolute independence, on the pavements of Venice, was not, as one might think, engaged in his first love-affair. Initiated in the facile pleasures which had more than once offered themselves to him, he would have been satiated and corrupt ere this, perhaps, if he had lived in our more depressing climate or if nature had endowed him with a poorer constitution. But, having developed at an early age and being destined to enjoy a long and powerful manhood, his heart was still pure and his passions held in check by his will. He had happened to meet the little Spaniard in front of the Madelonnettes, where she was singing anthems in a devotional spirit; and he, for the pleasure of exercising his voice, had sung with her to the stars during whole evenings. Then they had met on the sandy shores of the Lido, gathering shell-fish, he to eat them, she to make rosaries and ornaments. And they had met also at the church, she praying to the good Lord with all her heart, he watching the fine ladies with all his eyes. And at all these meetings, Consuelo had seemed to him so sweet, so gentle, so obliging, so light of heart, that he had become her friend and inseparable companion, without any very clear idea why or how. Anzoleto had hitherto known nothing of love but pleasure. He felt true friendship for Consuelo, and as he was of a country and a people where the reign of the passions is stronger than that of mere attachments, he knew no other name than love to give to this friendship. Consuelo accepted this application of words, after she had proffered this objection to Anzoleto: If you call yourself my lover, do you mean that you intend to marry me?—and he had replied: Certainly, if you wish it, we will be married.

Thereafter it was an understood thing. It may be that Anzoleto looked on it as a joke, whereas Consuelo believed in it with the utmost good faith. But it is certain that that young heart already experienced the opposing sentiments and complicated emotions which disturb and dislocate the existence of blasé worldlings.

Abandoned to violent instincts, greedy for pleasure, loving only what forwarded his happiness, hating and avoiding everything that impaired his enjoyment, an artist to the marrow, that is to say, seeking and enjoying life with appalling intensity, he concluded that his mistresses compelled him to undergo all the sufferings and perils of passions which he did not feel very deeply. Nevertheless, he saw them from time to time, recalled to them by his desires, and soon repelled again by satiety or irritation. And when this strange child had expended thus, without ideals and without dignity, the super-abundant vigor of his life, he felt the need of sweet companionship and of a chaste and serene outpouring of his heart. He might already have said, like Jean-Jacques: So true it is that what most attaches us to women is not so much lust as a certain charm in living with them! Thereupon, without seeking to analyze the charm which drew him to Consuelo, having as yet hardly an appreciation of the beautiful, and unable to say whether she was pretty or ugly, himself a child to the point of playing with her at games beneath his age, and a man to the point of scrupulously respecting her fourteen years, he led with her, in public, on the pavements and the canals of Venice, a life as happy, as pure, as secret, and almost as poetic as Paul and Virginia's under the orange-trees in the desert. Although they enjoyed a freedom more absolute and more dangerous, had no family, no watchful and loving mothers to mould them to virtue, no devoted servant to look for them at night and lead them back to the fold, not even a dog to warn them of danger, they had not made a single misstep. They sailed over the lagoons in an open boat, at all hours and in all weathers, without oars and without a pilot; they wandered about the salt marshes, without guide or time-piece, heedless of the rising tide; they sang in front of the chapels erected under the vine at street corners, paying no heed to the lateness of the hour, and needing no other bed than the white flagstones, still warm with the fires of the day. They stopped in front of the theatre of Pulcinella, and followed with passionate attention the fanciful drama of the fair Corisande, queen of the marionettes, oblivious of the lack of breakfast and of the small probability of supper. They plunged into the reckless merry-making of the Carnival, he having for all disguise and finery, his jacket turned inside out, and she, a huge knot of old ribbons over her ear. They made sumptuous repasts on the rail of a bridge or the steps of a palace, from sea-fruits,¹ leaves of raw fennel or the bark of lemon-trees. In short, they led a free and joyous life, with no more hazardous caresses or thoughts of love than two innocent children of the same age and sex would have exchanged.

Days and years passed. Anzoleto had other mistresses; Consuelo did not even suspect that there could be other kinds of love than that of which she was the object. She became a young woman with no idea that she was called upon to be more reserved with her fiancé; and he watched her grow and become transformed with no feeling of impatience and with no desire to change that companionship, in which there was no cloud, no mystery and no remorse.

Four years had passed since Professor Porpora and Count Zustiniani had presented to each other their respective protégés, and during that time the count had not given a thought to the young performer of sacred music; during that time, too, the professor had forgotten the handsome Anzoleto, inasmuch as, after a first trial, he had found him lacking in all the qualities which he required in a pupil: in the first place, a nature endowed with serious and patient intelligence; secondly, modesty carried to the point of absolute self-extinction in the master's presence; and lastly, an entire absence of musical study prior to that which he proposed to direct himself. Never propose to me a pupil whose brain is not like a clean slate, or a piece of virgin wax on which I can make the first impression. I have not time enough to devote a year to making him unlearn things before I begin to teach. If you wish me to write on a slate, let it be clean when you give it to me. Nor is that all; let it be of good quality too. If it is too thick, I shall not be able to make an impression on it; if it is too thin, I shall break it at the first trial.—In fine, although he recognized Anzoleto's extraordinary powers, he informed the count, with some irritation and with ironical humility, at the end of the first lesson, that his method was not suited to a pupil already so far advanced, and that any teacher would do merely to embarrass and retard the natural progress and irresistible development of that superb constitution.

The count sent his protégé to Professor Mellifiore, who guided him through the full development of his brilliant qualities, from roulade to cadenza, from trills to grupetti; so that, when he was twenty-three years old, he was declared by all those who heard him in the count's salon, fully capable of making his début in leading rôles at San Samuel with distinguished success.

One evening, all the noble dilettanti of Venice and all the artists who happened to be in the city at the time were invited to be present at a final and decisive test. For the first time in his life, Anzoleto laid aside his shabby plebeian costume, donned a black coat and satin waistcoat, brushed back and powdered his beautiful hair, clothed his feet in shoes with silver buckles, assumed a composed demeanor, and glided on tiptoe to a harpsichord, where, in the glare of a hundred candles, and under the eyes of two or three hundred people, he followed the notes of the prelude and launched himself, with his audacity, his ambition and his high C, upon that perilous career where, not a jury, nor a judge, but a whole audience holds in one hand the palm-branch and in the other the whistle.

Whether or not Anzoleto was inwardly moved, we need not ask; there was very little outward indication of it, at all events, and no sooner had his piercing eyes, furtively questioning those of the women present, divined the secret approval which is rarely denied to so attractive a young man; no sooner had the critics, surprised by such power and such facility of vocalization, given vent to favorable murmurs, than joy and hope overflowed his whole being. Then too did Anzoleto, who had hitherto been ordinarily taught and looked upon as a common gamin, feel for the first time in his life that he was no common man; and, carried away by the craving for triumph and conscious of its enjoyment, he sang with remarkable vigor, originality and verve. To be sure his taste was not always pure, nor his execution irreproachable in all the parts of the piece; but he was always able to redeem himself by audacious strokes, by gleams of intelligence and outbursts of enthusiasm. He missed effects which the composer had planned; but he produced others of which nobody had thought, neither the author who wrote the score, nor the teacher who interpreted it, nor any of the virtuosi who had rendered it. These bold ventures captured all his hearers and carried them off their feet. For one innovation they forgave him ten blunders; for one original sentiment, ten rebellions against method. So true it is, in respect of art, that the faintest gleam of genius, the feeblest flight toward new conquests, exerts more fascination over men than all the resources and enlightenment of science within the limits of the known.

Probably no one analyzed the causes, certainly no one escaped the effects of this enthusiasm. Corilla had opened the function with a grand aria, well sung and warmly applauded; but the success which the young débutant obtained so overshadowed hers that she felt a thrill of jealous rage. But when Anzoleto, overwhelmed with praises and caresses, returned to the harpsichord by which she was sitting, he said to her, stooping over her with a mixture of humility and audacity:

And have not you, O queen of song and of beauty, a glance of encouragement for the poor unfortunate wretch who fears you and adores you?

The prima donna, surprised by such boldness, looked closely at the handsome face which she had hardly deigned to notice before; for what vain and triumphant woman would deign to pay heed to a poor and obscure boy? She noticed him at last; she was deeply impressed by his beauty; his flaming glance pierced her through and through, and, vanquished, fascinated in her turn, she bestowed upon him a long and searching glance which affixed the seal to his patent of celebrity. In that memorable evening Anzoleto had swayed his audience and disarmed his most formidable enemy; for the fair cantatrice was not only queen on the boards, but in the management of the theatre and in Count Zustiniani's cabinet.

IV

Amid the universal and somewhat over-enthusiastic applause which the débutant's voice and manner had called forth, a single auditor, seated on the edge of his chair, his legs pressed close together and his hands motionless on his knees, remained mute as a sphinx and mysterious as a hieroglyph: it was the learned professor and famous composer, Porpora. While his gallant colleague, Professor Mellifiore, arrogating to himself all the honor of Anzoleto's success, strutted about among the women, and bowed low to all the men to thank them even for their glances, the master of sacred music sat there looking on the floor, his eyebrows contracted, lips compressed, and apparently lost in thought. When all the company, who were invited to a great ball to be given by the Dogaress that evening, had taken leave one by one, and only the most enthusiastic dilettanti, with a few ladies and the principal artists, remained around the harpsichord, Zustiniani accosted the unbending maestro.

You turn up your nose too much at the moderns, my dear professor, he said, and your silence doesn't frighten me at all. You are determined to close your senses to the end of time to this secular music and this new manner of execution which charm us. Your heart has opened in spite of you, and your ears have received the poison of seduction.

"Come, sior profesor," said the charming Corilla, in the Venetian patois, resuming with her former teacher the childlike manners of the scuola, you must grant me a favor.

Avaunt, wretched girl! cried the professor, half laughing, and resisting the cajoleries of his inconstant pupil with only a trace of his ill-humor. What have we in common henceforth? I no longer know you. Carry elsewhere your charming smiles and your perfidious cajolery.

Now he is softening, said Corilla, taking the débutant's arm with one hand, while with the other she continued to crumple the professor's ample white cravat. Come here, Zoto,² and bend your knee before the most learned singing-master in Italy. Humble yourself, my child, and disarm his severity. A word from him, if you can obtain it, should have more value in your eyes than all the trumpets of fame.

You were very harsh to me, signor professor, said Anzoleto, bowing low before him with a modesty not untinged with mockery; but my only thought for four years past has been to cause you to revoke a very cruel sentence; and if I have not succeeded this evening, I do not know if I shall have the courage to appear in public, burdened as I am with your anathema.

Child, said the professor, rising with animation and speaking with an intensity of conviction which made him noble and stately, instead of misshapen and sullen as he usually seemed to be, leave honeyed, deceitful words to women. Never stoop to the language of flattery, even before your superior, least of all, before him whose approbation you inwardly disdain. An hour ago you stood in yonder corner, poor, unknown, timid. Your whole future hung by a hair, depended on a note from your throat, on a moment's failure of your faculties, on a caprice of your audience. A mere chance, a single effort, an instant of time have made you rich, famous, insolent. The career is open before you; you have nothing to do now but march forward so long as your strength will sustain you. Hark ye, therefore, for you are about to hear the truth for the first time in your life, perhaps for the last. You have started wrong; you sing poorly and you prefer wretched music. You know nothing; you have studied nothing thoroughly. You simply have facility of execution and the benefit of long practice. Your passion is cold; you know how to coo and murmur like the pretty and coquettish damsels whom the public forgives for mumbling what they are unable to sing. But you do not know how to phrase; you pronounce badly; you have a vulgar accent, a false and vulgar style. Be not discouraged, however; you have all these faults, but you have the means of overcoming them, for you have the qualities which neither teaching nor work can impart; you have what neither bad advice nor bad examples can destroy—the sacred fire—genius! But alas! a fire that will cast its light upon nothing great, a genius that will remain always barren—for I can see in your eyes, as I felt in your chest, that you do not worship art, you have no reverence for the great masters nor respect for their great creations; you are enamored of glory, naught but glory, and glory for yourself alone. You might have—you could—But no, it is too late; your destiny will be the course of a meteor, like that of—

And the professor, abruptly pulling his hat down over his eyes, turned his back and departed, without saluting anyone, so absorbed was he in developing mentally his enigmatical sentence.

Although everybody made an effort to laugh at the professor's strange deliverance, it left a painful impression, and a sensation as of doubt and melancholy for some moments. Anzoleto was the first who seemed to have forgotten all about it, although it had caused him a profound thrill of joy, pride, anger and ambition, of which his whole life was to show the consequences. He seemed to be entirely engrossed by the desire to make himself agreeable to Corilla; and he succeeded so well in persuading her that his only wish was to please her, that she fell in love with him in all seriousness at the first meeting.

Count Zustiniani was not very jealous of her, and perhaps he had his reasons for not interfering with her overmuch. Moreover, he was more interested in the success and renown of his theatre than in anything else on earth; not that he was greedy for wealth, but because he was really a fanatic on the subject of what we call the beaux-arts. To my mind that is an expression well adapted to a certain commonplace sentiment, wholly Italian, and, consequently, passionate without very much discernment. The cult of art, a more modern expression, which everybody did not use a hundred years ago, has an entirely different meaning from taste for the beaux-arts. The count was, in fact, a man of taste, as the phrase was then understood, an amateur, and nothing more. But the gratification of that taste was the most important business of his life. He loved to think about the public, and to make the public think about him; to be on intimate terms with the artistes; to lead the fashions; to make people talk about his theatre, his magnificence, his affability. He had, in a word, the dominant passion of provincial noblemen—love of show. To own and manage a theatre was the best way of entertaining and gratifying a whole city. He would have been happier still if he could have seated the whole Republic at his table! When strangers asked Professor Porpora what sort of man Count Zustiniani was, he was accustomed to reply: He is a man who loves to entertain, and who serves music on his stage just as he serves pheasants on his table.

About one o'clock in the morning they separated. Anzolo, said Corilla, who was left alone with him for a moment in a recess of the balcony, where do you live?

At this unexpected question, Anzoleto felt that he blushed and turned pale almost simultaneously, for how could he confess to that marvelous and buxom beauty that he had neither fireside nor roof-tree? But it would have been easier to make even that answer than to own to the wretched hovel where he took shelter on those nights which he did not pass, from preference or from necessity, in the open air.

Well, what is there so extraordinary in my question? said Corilla, laughing at his confusion.

I was wondering, replied Anzoleto, with much presence of mind, what palace of kings or fairies would be worthy the proud mortal who should carry thither the memory of a look of love from Corilla!

And what does this flatterer mean by that? she rejoined, bestowing upon him the most burning glance that she could find in her arsenal of devilish wiles.

That I have not that happiness, the young man replied; but that if I had, I should be so proud that I would live nowhere else than between the sky and the sea, like the stars.

"Or like the cuccali?" cried the singer, laughing aloud. Everyone knows that the sea-gulls—cuccali—are birds whose foolishness is proverbial, and their awkwardness is the basis of a Venetian locution similar to our giddy as a butterfly.

Laugh at me, despise me, rejoined Anzoleto; I believe that I prefer that to your not thinking of me at all.

Come, she said; as you can answer only by metaphors, I will take you in my gondola, at the risk of taking you farther away from your home instead of nearer to it. If I play you that trick, it is your own fault.

Was that the motive of your curiosity, signora? In that case my answer is very short and clear: I live on the steps of your palace.

Go and wait for me then on the steps of the palace in which we now are, said Corilla, lowering her voice; for Zustiniani might well reprove me for the indulgence with which I listen to your nonsense.

In the first flight of his vanity, Anzoleto vanished, and bounded from the landing-place of the palace to the prow of Corilla's gondola, counting the seconds by the rapid throbs of his intoxicated heart. But before she appeared on the palace steps, many reflections passed through the débutant's active and ambitious brain. Corilla is omnipotent, he thought; but suppose that, by making myself agreeable to her, I displease the count? or suppose that, by my too easy triumph, I should cause her to lose her power over him by disgusting him altogether with so fickle a mistress?

In this perplexity, Anzoleto measured with his eye the height of the stairway, thinking that he might still reascend it; but there was the glare of torches under the porch, and the fair Corilla, wrapped in her ermine mantle, appeared on the topmost step, amid a group of gallants, all eager to support her rounded arm in the palm of their hands and thus assist her to descend, as the custom is in Venice.

How now! said the prima donna's gondolier to the bewildered Anzoleto, what are you doing there? Go into the gondola at once, if you have permission; or else run away along the bank, for the signor count is with the signora.

Anzoleto jumped into the gondola, hardly conscious of what he did. His brain was in a whirl. But he was no sooner inside than he began to think of the count's amazement and indignation, if he should enter the gondola with his mistress and find his presumptuous protégé there. His anguish of mind was the more cruel in that it was prolonged for five minutes. The signora halted halfway down the stairs. She talked and laughed very loud with her suite, and, as they had a dispute concerning a certain passage, she sang it aloud in several different ways. Her clear and vibrating voice rose and floated away over the palaces and cupolas along the canal, as the crow of the cock awakened before dawn dies away in the silence of the fields.

Anzoleto, unable to contain himself, determined to jump into the water on the side of the gondola that was not next the steps. He had already opened the window in the black velvet panel and had thrust one leg outside, when the prima donna's second rower, who was stationed at the stern, leaned over the side of the cabin and whispered to him:

She is singing; that means that you are to keep out of sight and wait without fear.

I did not know the customs, thought Anzoleto, and he waited, not without some vestiges of painful apprehension. Corilla amused herself by walking with the count to the bow of her gondola, where she stood, wishing him felicissima notte, until it had left the bank; then she went and sat down beside her new lover as calmly and naturally as if she had not risked his life and her own fortune in that audacious game.

Do you see Corilla? said Zustiniani, meanwhile, to Count Barberigo; well, I will stake my head that she is not alone in her gondola.

How can you have such a thought? said Barberigo.

Because she urged me again and again to escort her to her palace.

And you are no more jealous than that?

I was cured of that weakness long since. I would give a large sum to have our first cantatrice fall seriously in love with someone who would make her prefer remaining in Venice to the projects of travel with which she threatens me. I can very readily console myself for her infidelities, but I could not replace her voice or her talent or the frantic applause of the audiences that she holds captive at San Samuel.

I understand; but who can be the foolish princess's happy lover tonight?

The count and his friend passed in review all those whom Corilla might have noticed and encouraged during the evening. Anzoleto was absolutely the only one who did not occur to them.

V

Meanwhile a violent combat was raging in the breast of that fortunate lover whom the waves and the night bore away into their placid shadows, bewildered and palpitating, beside the most famous beauty of Venice. On the one hand, Anzoleto felt fermenting within him the ardor of a passion which the joy of gratified pride made even more powerful; but, on the other hand, the dread of wearying the singer ere long, of being laughed at, dismissed, and perfidiously accused to the count, threw cold water on his transports. Prudent and wary, like a true Venetian, he had not aspired to the stage for six years without being well informed concerning the fanciful and imperious woman who was the controlling spirit in all the intrigues at San Samuel. He had every reason to believe that his reign in her heart would be of brief duration; and the only reason that he had not evaded that perilous honor was that, having no idea that it was so imminent, he had been captured and vanquished by surprise. He had intended to obtain toleration at her hands by his politeness, and lo! he was already loved for his youth, his beauty and his budding glory!—Now, said Anzoleto to himself, with that swiftness of perception and decision which some marvellously constituted brains possess, my only hope is to make her fear me, if I do not wish to reach at once the bitter and ridiculous morrow of my triumph. But how am I, poor devil that I am, to make myself feared by the queen of hell in person? His mind was soon made up. He adopted a system of distrust, jealousy and bitter jibes, the impassioned coquetry of which amazed the prima donna. The whole of their ardent, frivolous conversation may be summarized thus:

ANZOLETO

I know very well that you do not love me, that you will never love me, and that is why I am sad and constrained in your presence.

CORILLA

And if I did love you?

ANZOLETO

I should be desperate altogether, because I should in time have to fall from heaven into a bottomless pit, and mayhap lose you an hour after I had won you at the cost of all my future happiness.

CORILLA

And what leads you to expect such inconstancy from me?

ANZOLETO

In the first place, my small deserts. Secondly, all the evil that men say of you.

CORILLA

Who speaks ill of me, I pray?

ANZOLETO

All the men, because all the men adore you.

CORILLA

Then, if I were foolish enough to conceive an attachment for you and to tell you so, you would spurn me?

ANZOLETO

I do not know if I should have the strength to fly; but, if I had, it is certain that I would never see you again while I live.

Very well, said Corilla, I am tempted to try the experiment from curiosity. Anzoleto, I think that I love you.

For my part, I think nothing of the sort, he replied. If I remain, it is because I understand perfectly that you jest. You cannot frighten me at that game and you incite me even less.

You propose a trial of skill, I verily believe?

Why not? I am not very formidable, as I place in your hands the means of vanquishing me.

What means?

To freeze my blood with terror, and to put me to flight by saying to me seriously what you said but now in jest.

You are a cunning knave! and I see that I must pay heed to every word with you. You are one of those men who do not wish simply to inhale the perfume of the rose, but to pluck it and put it under glass. I would not have believed you to be so bold or so obstinate at your age!

And you despise me on that account?

On the contrary: I like you better for it. Good-night, Anzoleto, we shall meet again.

She gave him her beautiful hand, which he kissed passionately.

I did not come out of that so badly, he said to himself, as he glided away under the galleries which bordered the narrow canal.

Hopeless of obtaining admission at that undue hour to the hovel where he usually slept, he proposed to stretch himself out in the first convenient doorway, there to enjoy the angelic repose which only childhood and poverty know. But for the first time in his life he could not find a doorstep clean enough to lie upon. Although the pavements in Venice are cleaner and whiter than in any other city in the world, that slightly dusty bed was far from being adapted to a full black suit of the finest broadcloth and the most fashionable cut. And then, too, the proprieties! Why, the very boatmen who strode heavily down the steps in the morning without touching the young plebeian's rags, would have insulted him in his sleep, and would, perhaps, purposely have soiled the livery of his parasitical splendor when displayed under their feet. What would they have thought of a young man sleeping in the open air, dressed in silk stockings, fine linen, and lace wristbands and ruff? At that moment Anzoleto sighed for his stout red and brown woolen cape, terribly faded, to be sure, and sadly worn, but still two fingers thick and proof against the unhealthy mist that rises from the waters of Venice in the morning. It was late in February, and although the sun is bright and hot at that time of year in that latitude, the nights are still very cold. It occurred to him to go and curl himself up in some gondola moored to the bank. They were all closed and locked. At last he found one of which the door yielded to his touch; but as he entered he stumbled over the feet of the boatman, who was asleep on the floor, and fell upon him.

Damnation! cried a hoarse voice from the depths of that cavern; who are you and what do you want?

Is it you, Zanetto? replied Anzoleto, recognizing the voice of the gondolier, who was usually very kind to him. Let me lie down beside you and take a nap under cover in your cabin.

Who are you? repeated Zanetto.

Anzoleto; don't you know me?

By Satan, no! You are wearing clothes that Anzoleto could not wear, unless he stole them. If you were the Doge in person, I would not open my boat to a man who has a fine coat to walk about in and not a corner to lay his head.

Thus far, thought Anzoleto, the dangers and unpleasant experiences to which Count Zustiniani's favors and patronage have exposed me outnumber the benefits I have received from them. It is time that my fortunes should correspond to my success, and I long to have a few sequins in my pocket, to sustain the part that he makes me play.

Irritated beyond measure, he wandered at random through the deserted street, not daring to stop lest he should check too suddenly the perspiration caused by anger and fatigue.

If only I do not take cold after all this! he said to himself. Tomorrow the signor count will probably desire his young prodigy to sing for some conceited ass of a critic, who, if I have the slightest sign of a frog in my throat as the result of a night out-of-doors, without sleep or rest, will declare that I have no voice; and the signor count, who is well aware that I have, will say: 'Ah! if you had heard him yesterday!'—'So he is not always the same?' the other will reply. Perhaps his 'health is not good?'—'Or perhaps he tired himself out yesterday,' a third will observe. 'He is really very young to sing two or three days in succession. You would do well to wait until he is more mature and stronger, before you bring him out.'—And the count will say: 'The devil! if it made him hoarse to sing two songs, he's not the man I want.'—Thereupon, to satisfy themselves that I am strong and in good health, they will make me sing scales every day till my breath gives out, and they will crack my voice to make sure that I have lungs. To the devil with the patronage of great noblemen! Oh! when shall I be able to throw off my chains, and when, strong in my renown, in the favor of the public, in the competition of the theatres to obtain my services, shall I be able to sing in their salons as a favor, and deal with them on equal terms?

Communing thus with himself, Anzoleto arrived at one of the small squares which in Venice are called corti, although they are not courts at all, but, consisting of a bunch of houses looking on a common space, correspond more nearly to what is called today in Paris a cité. But these so-called courts are very far from being as regularly laid out, as well-kept and as attractive as our modern squares. They are rather small, dark spaces, sometimes forming a cul-de-sac, in other instances used as a passage-way from one quarter to another; but little frequented, the houses abutting on them being occupied by people of slender means and lowly station, mostly from the ranks of the common people, mechanics, or laundresses who hang their linen on lines stretched across the way - an inconvenience which the passers-by endure with much patience, for their right to pass is sometimes permission rather than an established privilege. Woe to the poor artist reduced to the necessity of opening the windows of his studio upon these peaceful nooks, where the life of the proletariat, with its rustic, noisy and somewhat unclean habits, reappears abruptly in the heart of Venice, within a few steps of the broad canals and sumptuous edifices. Woe to him if silence is necessary to his meditations; for from dawn till dark