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Title: Vittoria, v4

Author: George Meredith

Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4438]

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[This file was first posted on January 24, 2002]

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This etext was produced by David Widger

VITTORIA

By George Meredith

BOOK 4.

XX. THE OPERA OF CAMILLA

XXI. THE THIRD ACT

XXII. WILFRID COMES FORWARD

XXIII. FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT

XXIV. ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO

XXV. ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS

CHAPTER XX

THE OPERA OF CAMILLA

She was dressed like a noble damsel from the hands of Titian. An Italian

audience cannot but be critical in their first glance at a prima donna,

for they are asked to do homage to a queen who is to be taken on her

merits: all that they have heard and have been taught to expect of her is

compared swiftly with the observation of her appearance and her manner.

She is crucially examined to discover defects. There is no boisterous

loyalty at the outset. And as it was now evident that Vittoria had

chosen to impersonate a significant character, her indications of method

were jealously watched for a sign of inequality, either in her, motion,

or the force of her eyes. So silent a reception might have seemed cruel

in any other case; though in all cases the candidate for laurels must, in

common with the criminal, go through the ordeal of justification. Men do

not heartily bow their heads until they have subjected the aspirant to

some personal contest, and find themselves overmatched. The senses,

ready to become so slavish in adulation and delight, are at the beginning

more exacting than the judgement, more imperious than the will. A figure

in amber and pale blue silk was seen, such as the great Venetian might

have sketched from his windows on a day when the Doge went forth to wed

the Adriatic a superb Italian head, with dark banded hair-braid, and dark

strong eyes under unabashed soft eyelids! She moved as, after long

gazing at a painting of a fair woman, we may have the vision of her

moving from the frame. It was an animated picture of ideal Italia.

The sea of heads right up to the highest walls fronted her glistening,

and she was mute as moonrise. A virgin who loosens a dove from her bosom

does it with no greater effort than Vittoria gave out her voice. The

white bird flutters rapidly; it circles and takes its flight. The voice

seemed to be as little the singer's own.

The theme was as follows:—Camilla has dreamed overnight that her lost

mother came to her bedside to bless her nuptials. Her mother was folded

in a black shroud, looking formless as death, like very death, save that

death sheds no tears. She wept, without change of voice, or mortal

shuddering, like one whose nature weeps: 'And with the forth-flowing of

her tears the knowledge of her features was revealed to me.' Behold the

Adige, the Mincio, Tiber, and the Po!—such great rivers were the tears

pouring from her eyes. She threw apart the shroud: her breasts and her

limbs were smooth and firm as those of an immortal Goddess: but breasts

and limbs showed the cruel handwriting of base men upon the body of a

martyred saint. The blood from those deep gashes sprang out at

intervals, mingling with her tears. She said:

'My child! were I a Goddess, my wounds would heal. Were I a Saint, I

should be in Paradise. I am no Goddess, and no Saint: yet I cannot die.

My wounds flow and my tears. My tears flow because of no fleshly

anguish: I pardon my enemies. My blood flows from my body, my tears from

my soul. They flow to wash out my shame. I have to expiate my soul's

shame by my body's shame. Oh! how shall I tell you what it is to walk

among my children unknown of them, though each day I bear the sun abroad

like my beating heart; each night the moon, like a heart with no blood in

it. Sun and moon they see, but not me! They know not their mother. I

cry to God. The answer of our God is this:—"Give to thy children one by

one to drink of thy mingled tears and blood:—then, if there is virtue in

them, they shall revive, thou shaft revive. If virtue is not in them,

they and thou shall continue prostrate, and the ox shall walk over you."

From heaven's high altar, O Camilla, my child, this silver sacramental

cup was reached to me. Gather my tears in it, fill it with my blood, and

drink.'

The song had been massive in monotones, almost Gregorian in its severity

up to this point.

'I took the cup. I looked my mother in the face. I filled the cup from

the flowing of her tears, the flowing of her blood; and I drank!'

Vittoria sent this last phrase ringing out forcefully. From the

inveterate contralto of the interview, she rose to pure soprano in

describing her own action. 'And I drank,' was given on a descent of the

voice: the last note was in the minor key—it held the ear as if more

must follow: like a wail after a triumph of resolve. It was a

masterpiece of audacious dramatic musical genius addressed with sagacious

cunning and courage to the sympathizing audience present. The supposed

incompleteness kept them listening; the intentness sent that last falling

(as it were, broken) note travelling awakeningly through their minds.

It is the effect of the minor key to stir the hearts of men with this

particular suggestiveness. The house rose, Italians—and Germans

together. Genius, music, and enthusiasm break the line of nationalities.

A rain of nosegays fell about Vittoria; evvivas, bravas, shouts—all the

outcries of delirious men surrounded her. Men and women, even among the

hardened chorus, shook together and sobbed. 'Agostino!' and 'Rocco!'

were called; 'Vittoria!' 'Vittoria!' above all, with increasing thunder,

like a storm rushing down a valley, striking in broad volume from rock to

rock, humming remote, and bursting up again in the face of the vale. Her

name was sung over and over—'Vittoria! Vittoria!' as if the mouths were

enamoured of it.

'Evviva la Vittoria a d' Italia!' was sung out from the body of the

house.

An echo replied—

'"Italia a il premio della VITTORIA!"' a well-known saying gloriously

adapted, gloriously rescued from disgrace.

But the object and source of the tremendous frenzy stood like one frozen

by the revelation of the magic the secret of which she has studiously

mastered. A nosegay, the last of the tributary shower, discharged from a

distance, fell at her feet. She gave it unconsciously preference over

the rest, and picked it up. A little paper was fixed in the centre. She

opened it with a mechanical hand, thinking there might be patriotic

orders enclosed for her. It was a cheque for one thousand guineas, drawn

upon an English banker by the hand of Antonio-Pericles Agriolopoulos;

freshly drawn; the ink was only half dried, showing signs of the dictates

of a furious impulse. This dash of solid prose, and its convincing proof

that her Art had been successful, restored Vittoria's composure, though

not her early statuesque simplicity. Rocco gave an inquiring look to see

if she would repeat the song. She shook her head resolutely. Her

opening of the paper in the bouquet had quieted the general ebullition,

and the expression of her wish being seen, the chorus was permitted to

usurp her place. Agostino paced up and down the lobby, fearful that he

had been guilty of leading her to anticlimax.

He met Antonio-Pericles, and told him so; adding (for now the mask had

been seen through, and was useless any further) that he had not had the

heart to put back that vision of Camilla's mother to a later scene, lest

an interruption should come which would altogether preclude its being

heard. Pericles affected disdain of any success which Vittoria had yet

achieved. 'Wait for Act the Third,' he said; but his irritable

anxiousness to hold intercourse with every one, patriot or critic,

German, English, or Italian, betrayed what agitation of exultation

coursed in his veins. 'Aha!' was his commencement of a greeting; 'was

Antonio-Pericles wrong when he told you that he had a prima donna for you

to amaze all Christendom, and whose notes were safe and firm as the

footing of the angels up and down Jacob's ladder, my friends? Aha!'

'Do you see that your uncle is signalling to you?' Countess Lena said to

Wilfrid. He answered like a man in a mist, and looked neither at her nor

at the General, who, in default of his obedience to gestures, came good-

humouredly to the box, bringing Captain Weisspriess with him.

'We 're assisting at a pretty show,' he said.

'I am in love with her voice,' said Countess Anna.

'Ay; if it were only a matter of voices, countess.'

'I think that these good people require a trouncing,' said Captain

Weisspriess.

'Lieutenant Pierson is not of your opinion,' Countess Anna remarked.

Hearing his own name, Wilfrid turned to them with a weariness well acted,

but insufficiently to a jealous observation, for his eyes were quick

under the carelessly-dropped eyelids, and ranged keenly over the stage

while they were affecting to assist his fluent tongue.

Countess Lena levelled her opera-glass at Carlo Ammiani, and then placed

the glass in her sister's hand. Wilfrid drank deep of bitterness. 'That

is Vittoria's lover,' he thought; 'the lover of the Emilia who once loved

me!'

General Pierson may have noticed this by-play: he said to his nephew in

the brief military tone: 'Go out; see that the whole regiment is handy

about the house; station a dozen men, with a serjeant, at each of the

backdoors, and remain below. I very much mistake, or we shall have to

make a capture of this little woman to-night.'

'How on earth,' he resumed, while Wilfrid rose savagely and went out with

his stiffest bow, 'this opera was permitted to appear, I can't guess! A

child could see through it. The stupidity of our civil authorities

passes my understanding—it's a miracle! We have stringent orders not to

take any initiative, or I would stop the Fraulein Camilla from uttering

another note.'

'If you did that, I should be angry with you, General,' said Countess

Anna.

'And I also think the Government cannot do wrong,' Countess Lena joined

in.

The General contented himself by saying: 'Well, we shall see.'

Countess Lena talked to Captain Weisspriess in an undertone, referring to

what she called his dispute with Carlo Ammiani. The captain was

extremely playful in rejoinders.

'You iron man!' she exclaimed.

'Man of steel would be the better phrase,' her sister whispered.

'It will be an assassination, if it happens.'

'No officer can bear with an open insult, Lena.'

'I shall not sit and see harm done to my old playmate, Anna.'

'Beware of betraying yourself for one who detests you.'

A grand duo between Montini and Vittoria silenced all converse. Camilla

tells Camillo of her dream. He pledges his oath to discover her mother,

if alive; if dead, to avenge her. Camilla says she believes her mother

is in the dungeons of Count Orso's castle. The duo tasked Vittoria's

execution of florid passages; it gave evidence of her sound artistic

powers.

'I was a fool,' thought Antonio-Pericles; 'I flung my bouquet with the

herd. I was a fool! I lost my head!'

He tapped angrily at the little ink-flask in his coat-pocket. The first

act, after scenes between false Camillo and Michiella, ends with the

marriage of Camillo and Camilla;—a quatuor composed of Montini,

Vittoria, Irma, and Lebruno. Michiella is in despair; Count Orso is

profoundly sonorous with paternity and devotion to the law. He has

restored to Camilla a portion of her mother's sequestrated estates.

A portion of the remainder will be handed over to her when he has had

experience of her husband's good behaviour. The rest he considers

legally his own by right of (Treaties), and by right of possession and

documents his sword. Yonder castle he must keep. It is the key of all

his other territories. Without it, his position will be insecure.

(Allusion to the Austrian argument that the plains of Lombardy are the

strategic defensive lines of the Alps.)

Agostino, pursued by his terror of anticlimax, ran from the sight of

Vittoria when she was called, after the fall of the curtain. He made his

way to Rocco Ricci (who had given his bow to the public from his perch),

and found the maestro drinking Asti to counteract his natural excitement.

Rocco told Agostino, that up to the last moment, neither he nor any soul

behind the scenes knew Vittoria would be able to appear, except that she

had sent a note to him with a pledge to be in readiness for the call.

Irma had come flying in late, enraged, and in disorder, praying to take

Camilla's part; but Montini refused to act with the seconda donna as

prima donna. They had commenced the opera in uncertainty whether it

could go on beyond the situation where Camilla presents herself. 'I was

prepared to throw up my baton,' said Rocco, 'and publicly to charge the

Government with the rape of our prima donna. Irma I was ready to

replace. I could have filled that gap.' He spoke of Vittoria's triumph.

Agostino's face darkened. 'Ha!' said he, 'provided we don't fall flat,

like your Asti with the cork out. I should have preferred an enthusiasm

a trifle more progressive. The notion of travelling backwards is upon me

forcibly, after that tempest of acclamation.'

'Or do you think that you have put your best poetry in the first Act?'

Rocco suggested with malice.

'Not a bit of it!' Agostino repudiated the idea very angrily, and puffed

and puffed. Yet he said, 'I should not be lamenting if the opera were

stopped at once.'

'No!' cried Rocco; 'let us have our one night. I bargain for that.

Medole has played us false, but we go on. We are victims already, my

Agostino.'

'But I do stipulate,' said Agostino, 'that my jewel is not to melt

herself in the cup to-night. I must see her. As it is, she is

inevitably down in the list for a week's or a month's incarceration.'

Antonio-Pericles had this, in his case, singular piece of delicacy, that

he refrained from the attempt to see Vittoria immediately after he had

flung his magnificent bouquet of treasure at her feet. In his

intoxication with the success which he had foreseen and cradled to its

apogee, he was now reckless of any consequences. He felt ready to take

patriotic Italy in his arms, provided that it would succeed as Vittoria

had done, and on the spot. Her singing of the severe phrases of the

opening chant, or hymn, had turned the man, and for a time had put a new

heart in him. The consolation was his also, that he had rewarded it the

most splendidly—as it were, in golden italics of praise; so that her

forgiveness of his disinterested endeavour to transplant her was certain,

and perhaps her future implicit obedience or allegiance bought. Meeting

General Pierson, the latter rallied him.

'Why, my fine Pericles, your scheme to get this girl out of the way was

capitally concerted. My only fear is that on another occasion the

Government will take another view of it and you.'

Pericles shrugged. 'The Gods, my dear General, decree. I did my best to

lay a case before them; that is all.'

'Ah, well! I am of opinion you will not lay many other cases before the

Gods who rule in Milan.'

'I have helped them to a good opera.'

'Are you aware that this opera consists entirely of political allusions?'

General Pierson spoke offensively, as the urbane Austrian military

permitted themselves to do upon occasion when addressing the conquered or

civilians.

'To me,' returned Pericles, 'an opera—it is music. I know no more.'

'You are responsible for it,' said the General, harshly. 'It was taken

upon trust from you.'

'Brutal Austrians!' Pericles murmured. 'And you do not think much of her

voice, General?'

'Pretty fair, sir.'

'What wonder she does not care to open her throat to these swine!'

thought the changed Greek.

Vittoria's door was shut to Agostino. No voice within gave answer. He

tried the lock of the door, and departed. She sat in a stupor. It was

harder for her to make a second appearance than it was to make the first,

when the shameful suspicion cruelly attached to her had helped to balance

her steps with rebellious pride; and more, the great collected wave of

her ambitious years of girlhood had cast her forward to the spot, as in a

last effort for consummation. Now that she had won the public voice

(love, her heart called it) her eyes looked inward; she meditated upon

what she had to do, and coughed nervously. She frightened herself with

her coughing, and shivered at the prospect of again going forward in the

great nakedness of stagelights and thirsting eyes. And, moreover, she

was not strengthened by the character of the music and the poetry of the

second Act:—a knowledge of its somewhat inferior quality may possibly

have been at the root of Agostino's dread of an anticlimax. The seconda

donna had the chief part in it—notably an aria (Rocco had given it to

her in compassion) that suited Irma's pure shrieks and the tragic

skeleton she could be. Vittoria knew how low she was sinking when she

found her soul in the shallows of a sort of jealousy of Irma. For a

little space she lost all intimacy with herself; she looked at her face

in the glass and swallowed water, thinking that she had strained a dream

and confused her brain with it. The silence of her solitary room coming

upon the blaze of light the colour and clamour of the house, and the

strange remembrance of the recent impersonation of an ideal character,

smote her with the sense of her having fallen from a mighty eminence,

and that she lay in the dust. All those incense-breathing flowers heaped

on her table seemed poisonous, and reproached her as a delusion. She sat

crouching alone till her tirewomen called; horrible talkative things!

her own familiar maid Giacinta being the worst to bear with.

Now, Michiella, by making love to Leonardo, Camillo's associate,

discovers that Camillo is conspiring against her father. She utters to

Leonardo very pleasant promises indeed, if he will betray his friend.

Leonardo, a wavering baritono, complains that love should ask for any

return save in the coin of the empire of love. He is seduced, and

invokes a malediction upon his head should he accomplish what he has

sworn to perform. Camilla reposes perfect confidence in this wretch, and

brings her more doubtful husband to be of her mind.

Camillo and Camilla agree to wear the mask of a dissipated couple.

They throw their mansion open; dicing, betting, intriguing, revellings,

maskings, commence. Michiella is courted ardently by Camillo; Camilla

trifles with Leonardo and with Count Orso alternately. Jealous again

of Camilla, Michiella warns and threatens Leonardo; but she becomes

Camillo's dupe, partly from returning love, partly from desire for

vengeance on her rival. Camilla persuades Orso to discard Michiella.

The infatuated count waxes as the personification of portentous

burlesque; he is having everything his own way. The acting throughout—

owing to the real gravity of the vast basso Lebruno's burlesque, and

Vittoria's archness—was that of high comedy with a lurid background.

Vittoria showed an enchanting spirit of humour. She sang one bewitching

barcarole that set the house in rocking motion. There was such

melancholy in her heart that she cast herself into all the flippancy with

abandonment. The Act was weak in too distinctly revealing the finger of

the poetic political squib at a point here and there. The temptation to

do it of an Agostino, who had no other outlet, had been irresistible, and

he sat moaning over his artistic depravity, now that it stared him in the

face. Applause scarcely consoled him, and it was with humiliation of

mind that he acknowledged his debt to the music and the singers, and how

little they owed to him.

Now Camillo is pleased to receive the ardent passion of his wife, and the

masking suits his taste, but it is the vice of his character that he

cannot act to any degree subordinately in concert; he insists upon

positive headship!—(allusion to an Italian weakness for sovereignties;

it passed unobserved, and chuckled bitterly over his excess of subtlety).

Camillo cannot leave the scheming to her. He pursues Michiella to subdue

her with blandishments. Reproaches cease upon her part. There is a duo

between them. They exchange the silver keys, which express absolute

intimacy, and give mutual freedom of access. Camillo can now secrete his

followers in the castle; Michiella can enter Camilla's blue-room, and

ravage her caskets for treasonable correspondence. Artfully she bids him

reflect on what she is forfeiting for him; and so helps him to put aside

the thought of that which he also may be imperilling.

Irma's shrill crescendos and octave-leaps, assisted by her peculiar

attitudes of strangulation, came out well in this scene. The murmurs

concerning the sour privileges to be granted by a Lazzeruola were

inaudible. But there has been a witness to the stipulation. The ever-

shifting baritono, from behind a pillar, has joined in with an aside

phrase here and there. Leonardo discovers that his fealty to Camilla is

reviving. He determines to watch over her. Camillo now tosses a

perfumed handkerchief under his nose, and inhales the coxcombical incense

of the idea that he will do all without Camilla's aid, to surprise her;

thereby teaching her to know him to be somewhat a hero. She has played

her part so thoroughly that he can choose to fancy her a giddy person;

he remarks upon the frequent instances of girls who in their girlhood

were wild dreamers becoming after marriage wild wives. His followers

assemble, that he may take advantage of the exchanged key of silver.

He is moved to seek one embrace of Camilla before the conflict:—she is

beautiful! There was never such beauty as hers! He goes to her in the

fittest preparation for the pangs of jealousy. But he has not been

foremost in practising the uses of silver keys. Michiella, having first

arranged with her father to be before Camillo's doors at a certain hour

with men-at-arms, is in Camilla's private chamber, with her hand upon a

pregnant box of ebony wood, when she is startled by a noise, and slips

into concealment. Leonardo bursts through the casement window. Camilla

then appears. Leonardo stretches the tips of his fingers out to her; on

his knees confesses his guilt and warns her. Camillo comes in.

Thrusting herself before him, Michiella points to the stricken couple

'See! it is to show you this that I am here.' Behold occasion for a

grand quatuor!

While confessing his guilt to Camilla, Leonardo has excused it by an

emphatic delineation of Michiella's magic sway over him. (Leonardo, in

fact, is your small modern Italian Machiavelli, overmatched in cunning,

for the reason that he is always at a last moment the victim of his poor

bit of heart or honesty: he is devoid of the inspiration of great

patriotic aims.) If Michiella (Austrian intrigue) has any love, it is for

such a tool. She cannot afford to lose him. She pleads for him; and, as

Camilla is silent on his account, the cynical magnanimity of Camillo is

predisposed to spare a fangless snake. Michiella withdraws him from the

naked sword to the back of the stage. The terrible repudiation scene

ensues, in which Camillo casts off his wife. If it was a puzzle to one

Italian half of the audience, the other comprehended it perfectly, and

with rapture. It was thus that YOUNG ITALY had too often been treated by

the compromising, merely discontented, dallying aristocracy. Camilla

cries to him, 'Have faith in me! have faith in me! have faith in me!'

That is the sole answer to his accusations, his threats of eternal

loathing, and generally blustering sublimities. She cannot defend

herself; she only knows her innocence. He is inexorable, being the

guilty one of the two. Turning from him with crossed arms, Camilla

sings:

'Mother! it is my fate that I should know

Thy miseries, and in thy footprints go.

Grief treads the starry places of the earth:

In thy long track I feel who gave me birth.

I am alone; a wife without a lord;

My home is with the stranger—home abhorr'd!—

But that I trust to meet thy spirit there.

Mother of Sorrows! joy thou canst not share:

So let me wander in among the tombs,

Among the cypresses and the withered blooms.

Thy soul is with dead suns: there let me be;

A silent thing that shares thy veil with thee.'

The wonderful viol-like trembling of the contralto tones thrilled through

the house. It was the highest homage to Vittoria that no longer any

shouts arose nothing but a prolonged murmur, as when one tells another a

tale of deep emotion, and all exclamations, all ulterior thoughts, all

gathered tenderness of sensibility, are reserved for the close, are seen

heaping for the close, like waters above a dam. The flattery of

beholding a great assembly of human creatures bound glittering in wizard

subservience to the voice of one soul, belongs to the artist, and is the

cantatrice's glory, pre-eminent over whatever poor glory this world

gives. She felt it, but she felt it as something apart. Within her was

the struggle of Italy calling to Italy: Italy's shame, her sadness, her

tortures, her quenchless hope, and the view of Freedom. It sent her

blood about her body in rebellious volumes. Once it completely strangled

her notes. She dropped the ball of her chin in her throat; paused

without ceremony; and recovered herself. Vittoria had too severe an

artistic instinct to court reality; and as much as she could she from

that moment corrected the underlinings of Agostino's libretto.

On the other hand, Irma fell into all his traps, and painted her Austrian

heart with a prodigal waste of colour and frank energy:

'Now Leonardo is my tool:

Camilla is my slave:

And she I hate goes forth to cool

Her rage beyond the wave.

Joy! joy!

Paid am I in full coin for my caressing;

I take, but give nought, ere the priestly blessing.'

A subtle distinction. She insists upon her reverence for the priestly

(papistical) blessing, while she confides her determination to have it

dispensed with in Camilla's case. Irma's known sympathies with the

Austrian uniform seasoned the ludicrousness of many of the double-edged

verses which she sang or declaimed in recitative. The irony of

applauding her vehemently was irresistible.

Camilla is charged with conspiracy, and proved guilty by her own

admission.

The Act ends with the entry of Count Orso and his force; conspirators

overawed; Camilla repudiated; Count Orso imperially just; Leonardo

chagrined; Camillo pardoned; Michiella triumphant. Camillo sacrifices

his wife for safety. He holds her estates; and therefore Count Orso,

whose respect for law causes him to have a keen eye for matrimonial

alliances, is now paternally willing, and even anxious to bestow

Michiella upon him when the Pontifical divorce can be obtained; so that

the long-coveted fruitful acres may be in the family. The chorus sings a

song of praise to Hymen, the 'builder of great Houses.' Camilla goes

forth into exile. The word was not spoken, but the mention of 'bread of

strangers, strange faces, cold climes,' said sufficient.

'It is a question whether we ought to sit still and see a firebrand

flashed in our faces,' General Pierson remarked as the curtain fell. He

was talking to Major de Pyrmont outside the Duchess of Graatli's box.

Two General officers joined them, and presently Count Serabiglione, with

his courtly semi-ironical smile, on whom they straightway turned their

backs. The insult was happily unseen, and the count caressed his shaven

chin and smiled himself onward. The point for the officers to decide

was, whether they dared offend an enthusiastic house—the fiery core of

the population of Milan—by putting a stop to the opera before worse

should come.

Their own views were entirely military; but they were paralyzed by the

recent pseudo-liberalistic despatches from Vienna; and agreed, with some

malice in their shrugs, that the odium might as well be left on the

shoulders of the bureau which had examined the libretto. In fact, they

saw that there would be rank peril in attempting to arrest the course of

things within the walls of the house.

'The temper this people is changeing oddly,' said General Pierson. Major

de Pyrmont listened awhile to what they had to say, and returned to the

duchess. Amalia wrote these lines to Laura:—

'If she sings that song she is to be seized on the wings of the stage.

I order my carriage to be in readiness to take her whither she should

have gone last night. Do you contrive only her escape from the house.

Georges de P. will aid you. I adore the naughty rebel!'

Major de Pyrmont delivered the missive at Laura's box. He went down to

the duchess's chasseur, and gave him certain commands and money for a

journey. Looking about, he beheld Wilfrid, who implored him to take his

place for two minutes. De Pyrmont laughed. 'She is superb, my friend.

Come up with me. I am going behind the scenes. The unfortunate

impresario is a ruined man; let us both condole with him. It is possible

that he has children, and children like bread.'

Wilfrid was linking his arm to De Pyrmont's, when, with a vivid

recollection of old times, he glanced at his uniform with Vittoria's

eyes. 'She would spit at me!' he muttered, and dropped behind.

Up in her room Vittoria held council with Rocco, Agostino, and the

impresario, Salvolo, who was partly their dupe. Salvolo had laid a

freshly-written injunction from General Pierson before her, bidding him

to exclude the chief solo parts from the Third Act, and to bring it

speedily to a termination. His case was, that he had been ready to

forfeit much if a rising followed; but that simply to beard the

authorities was madness. He stated his case by no means as a pleader,

although the impression made on him by the prima donna's success caused

his urgency to be civil.

'Strike out what you please,' said Vittoria.

Agostino smote her with a forefinger. 'Rogue! you deserve an imperial

crown. You have been educated for monarchy. You are ready enough to

dispense with what you don't care for, and what is not your own.'

Much of the time was lost by Agostino's dispute with Salvolo. They

haggled and wrangled laughingly over this and that printed aria, but it

was a deplorable deception of the unhappy man; and with Vittoria's

stronger resolve to sing the incendiary song, the more necessary it was

for her to have her soul clear of deceit. She said, 'Signor Salvolo, you

have been very kind to me, and I would do nothing to hurt your interests.

I suppose you must suffer for being an Italian, like the rest of us.

The song I mean to sing is not written or printed. What is in the book

cannot harm you, for the censorship has passed it; and surely I alone am

responsible for singing what is not in the book—I and the maestro. He

supports me. We have both taken precautions' (she smiled) 'to secure our

property. If you are despoiled, we will share with you. And believe,

oh! in God's name, believe that you will not suffer to no purpose!'

Salvolo started from her in a horror of amazement. He declared that he

had been miserably deceived and entrapped. He threatened to send the

company to their homes forthwith. 'Dare to!' said Agostino; and to judge

by the temper of the house, it was only too certain, that if he did so,

La Scala would be a wrecked tenement in the eye of morning. But Agostino

backed his entreaty to her to abjure that song; Rocco gave way, and half

shyly requested her to think of prudence. She remembered Laura, and

Carlo, and her poor little frightened foreign mother. Her intense ideal

conception of her duty sank and danced within her brain as the pilot-star

dances on the bows of a tossing vessel. All were against her, as the

tempest is against the ship. Even light above (by which I would image

that which she could appeal to pleading in behalf of the wisdom of her

obstinate will) was dyed black in the sweeping obscuration; she failed to

recollect a sentence that was to be said to vindicate her settled course.

Her sole idea was her holding her country by an unseen thread, and of the

everlasting welfare of Italy being jeopardized if she relaxed her hold.

Simple obstinacy of will sustained her.

You mariners batten down the hatchways when the heavens are dark and seas

are angry. Vittoria, with the same faith in her instinct, shut the

avenues to her senses—would see nothing, hear nothing. The impresario's

figure of despair touched her later. Giacinta drove him forth in the act

of smiting his forehead with both hands. She did the same for Agostino

and Rocco, who were not demonstrative.

They knew that by this time the agents of the Government were in all

probability ransacking their rooms, and confiscating their goods.

'Is your piano hired?' quoth the former.

'No,' said the latter, 'are your slippers?'

They went their separate ways, laughing.

CHAPTER XXI

THE THIRD ACT

The libretto of the Third Act was steeped in the sentiment of Young

Italy. I wish that I could pipe to your mind's hearing any notion of the

fine music of Rocco Ricci, and touch you to feel the revelations which

were in this new voice. Rocco and Vittoria gave the verses a life that

cannot belong to them now; yet, as they contain much of the vital spirit

of the revolt, they may assist you to some idea of the faith animating

its heads, and may serve to justify this history.

Rocco's music in the opera of Camilla had been sprung from a fresh

Italian well; neither the elegiac-melodious, nor the sensuous-lyrical,

nor the joyous buffo; it was severe as an old masterpiece, with veins

of buoyant liveliness threading it, and with sufficient distinctness

of melody to enrapture those who like to suck the sugarplums of sound.

He would indeed have favoured the public with more sweet things, but

Vittoria, for whom the opera was composed, and who had been at his elbow,

was young, and stern in her devotion to an ideal of classical music that

should elevate and never stoop to seduce or to flatter thoughtless

hearers. Her taste had directed as her voice had inspired the opera.

Her voice belonged to the order of the simply great voices, and was a

royal voice among them. Pure without attenuation, passionate without

contortion, when once heard it exacted absolute confidence. On this

night her theme and her impersonation were adventitious introductions,

but there were passages when her artistic pre-eminence and the sovereign

fulness and fire of her singing struck a note of grateful remembered

delight. This is what the great voice does for us. It rarely astonishes

our ears. It illumines our souls, as you see the lightning make the

unintelligible craving darkness leap into long mountain ridges, and

twisting vales, and spires of cities, and inner recesses of light within

light, rose-like, toward a central core of violet heat.

At the rising of the curtain the knights of the plains, Rudolfo,

Romualdo, Arnoldo, and others, who were conspiring to overthrow Count

Orso at the time when Camillo's folly ruined all, assemble to deplore

Camilla's banishment, and show, bereft of her, their helplessness and

indecision. They utter contempt of Camillo, who is this day to be

Pontifically divorced from his wife to espouse the detested Michiella.

His taste is not admired.

They pass off. Camillo appears. He is, as he knows, little better than

a pensioner in Count Orso's household. He holds his lands on sufferance.

His faculties are paralyzed. He is on the first smooth shoulder-slope of

the cataract. He knows that not only was his jealousy of his wife

groundless, but it was forced by a spleenful pride. What is there to do?

Nothing, save resignedly to prepare for his divorce from the conspiratrix

Camilla and espousals with Michiella. The cup is bitter, and his song is

mournful. He does the rarest thing a man will do in such a predicament—

he acknowledges that he is going to get his deserts. The faithfulness

and purity of Camilla have struck his inner consciousness. He knows not

where she may be. He has secretly sent messengers in all directions to

seek her, and recover her, and obtain her pardon: in vain. It is as

well, perhaps, that he should never see her more. Accursed, he has cast

off his sweetest friend. The craven heart could never beat in unison

with hers.

'She is in the darkness: I am in the light. I am a blot upon the light;

she is light in the darkness.'

Montini poured this out with so fine a sentiment that the impatience of

the house for sight of its heroine was quieted. But Irma and Lebruno

came forward barely under tolerance.

'We might as well be thumping a tambourine,' said Lebruno, during a

caress. Irma bit her underlip with mortification. Their notes fell flat

as bullets against a wall.

This circumstance aroused the ire of Antonio-Pericles against the

libretto and revolutionists. 'I perceive,' he said, grinning savagely,

'it has come to be a concert, not an opera; it is a musical harangue in

the marketplace. Illusion goes: it is politics here!'

Carlo Ammiani was sitting with his mother and Luciano breathlessly

awaiting the entrance of Vittoria. The inner box-door was rudely shaken:

beneath it a slip of paper had been thrust. He read a warning to him to

quit the house instantly. Luciano and his mother both counselled his

departure. The detestable initials 'B. R.,' and the one word 'Sbirri,'

revealed who had warned, and what was the danger. His friend's advice

and the commands of his mother failed to move him. 'When I have seen her

safe; not before,' he said.

Countess Ammiani addressed Luciano: 'This is a young man's love for a

woman.'

'The woman is worth it,' Luciano replied.

'No woman is worth the sacrifice of a mother and of a relative.'

'Dearest countess,' said Luciano, 'look at the pit; it's a cauldron. We

shall get him out presently, have no fear: there will soon be hubbub

enough to let Lucifer escape unseen. If nothing is done to-night, he and

I will be off to the Lago di Garda to-morrow morning, and fish and shoot,

and talk with Catullus.'

The countess gazed on her son with sorrowful sternness. His eyes had

taken that bright glazed look which is an indication of frozen brain and

turbulent heart—madness that sane men enamoured can be struck by. She

knew there was no appeal to it.

A very dull continuous sound, like that of an angry swarm, or more like a

rapid mufed thrumming of wires, was heard. The audience had caught view

of a brown-coated soldier at one of the wings. The curious Croat had

merely gratified a desire to have a glance at the semicircle of crowded

heads; he withdrew his own, but not before he had awakened the wild beast

in the throng. Yet a little while and the roar of the beasts would have

burst out. It was thought that Vittoria had been seized or interdicted

from appearing. Conspirators—the knights of the plains—meet: Rudolfos,

Romualdos, Arnoldos, and others,—so that you know Camilla is not idle.

She comes on in the great scene which closes the opera.

It is the banqueting hall of the castle. The Pontifical divorce is

spread upon the table. Courtly friends, guards, and a choric bridal

company, form a circle.

'I have obtained it,' says Count Orso: 'but at a cost.'

Leonardo, wavering eternally, lets us know that it is weighted with a

proviso: IF Camilla shall not present herself within a certain term, this

being the last day of it. Camillo comes forward. Too late, he has

perceived his faults and weakness. He has cast his beloved from his arms

to clasp them on despair. The choric bridal company gives intervening

strophes. Cavaliers enter. 'Look at them well,' says Leonardo. They

are the knights of the plains. 'They have come to mock me,' Camillo

exclaims, and avoids them.

Leonardo, Michiella, and Camillo now sing a trio that is tricuspidato,

or a three-pointed manner of declaring their divergent sentiments in

harmony. The fast-gathering cavaliers lend masculine character to the

choric refrains at every interval. Leonardo plucks Michiella

entreatingly by the arm. She spurns him. He has served her; she needs

him no more; but she will recommend him in other quarters, and bids him

to seek them. 'I will give thee a collar for thy neck, marked

"Faithful." It is the utmost I can do for thy species.' Leonardo thinks

that he is insulted, but there is a vestige of doubt in him still. 'She

is so fair! she dissembles so magnificently ever!' She has previously

told him that she is acting a part, as Camilla did. Irma had shed all

her hair from a golden circlet about her temples, barbarian-wise. Some

Hunnish grandeur pertained to her appearance, and partly excused the

infatuated wretch who shivered at her disdain and exulted over her beauty

and artfulness.

In the midst of the chorus there is one veiled figure and one voice

distinguishable. This voice outlives the rest at every strophe, and

contrives to add a supplemental antiphonic phrase that recalls in turn

the favourite melodies of the opera. Camillo hears it, but takes it as a

delusion of impassioned memory and a mere theme for the recurring

melodious utterance of his regrets. Michiella hears it. She chimes with

the third notes of Camillo's solo to inform us of her suspicions that

they have a serpent among them. Leonardo hears it. The trio is formed.

Count Orso, without hearing it, makes a quatuor by inviting the bridal

couple to go through the necessary formalities. The chorus changes its

measure to one of hymeneals. The unknown voice closes it ominously with

three bars in the minor key. Michiella stalks close around the rank

singers like an enraged daughter of Attila. Stopping in front of the

veiled figure, she says: 'Why is it thou wearest the black veil at my

nuptials?'

'Because my time of mourning is not yet ended.'

'Thou standest the shadow in my happiness.'

'The bright sun will have its shadow.'

'I desire that all rejoice this day.'

'My hour of rejoicing approaches.'

'Wilt thou unveil?'

'Dost thou ask to look the storm in the face?'

'Wilt thou unveil?'

'Art thou hungry for the lightning?'

'I bid thee unveil, woman!'

Michiella's ringing shriek of command produces no response.

'It is she!' cries Michiella, from a contracted bosom; smiting it with

clenched hands.

'Swift to the signatures. O rival! what bitterness hast thou come hither

to taste.'

Camilla sings aside: 'If yet my husband loves me and is true.'

Count Orso exclaims: 'Let trumpets sound for the commencement of the

festivities. The lord of his country may slumber while his people dance

and drink!'

Trumpets flourish. Witnesses are called about the table. Camillo, pen

in hand, prepares for the supreme act. Leonardo at one wing watches the

eagerness of Michiella. The chorus chants to a muted measure of

suspense, while Camillo dips pen in ink.

'She is away from me: she scorns me: she is lost to me. Life without

honour is the life of swine. Union without love is the yoke of savage

beasts. O me miserable! Can the heavens themselves plumb the depth of

my degradation?'

Count Orso permits a half-tone of paternal severity to point his kindly

hint that time is passing. When he was young, he says, in the broad and

benevolently frisky manner, he would have signed ere the eye of the

maiden twinkled her affirmative, or the goose had shed its quill.

Camillo still trifles. Then he dashes the pen to earth.

'Never! I have but one wife. Our marriage is irrevocable. The

dishonoured man is the everlasting outcast. What are earthly possessions

to me, if within myself shame faces me? Let all go. Though I have lost

Camilla, I will be worthy of her. Not a pen no pen; it is the sword that

I must write with. Strike, O count! I am here: I stand alone. By the

edge of this sword, I swear that never deed of mine shall rob Camilla of

her heritage; though I die the death, she shall not weep for a craven!'

The multitude break away from Camilla—veiled no more, but radiant; fresh

as a star that issues through corrupting vapours, and with her voice at a

starry pitch in its clear ascendency:

'Tear up the insufferable scroll!—

O thou, my lover and my soul!

It is the Sword that reunites;

The Pen that our perdition writes.'

She is folded in her husband's arms.

Michiella fronts them, horrid of aspect:—

'Accurst divorced one! dost thou dare

To lie in shameless fondness there?

Abandoned! on thy lying brow

Thy name shall be imprinted now.'

Camilla parts from her husband's embrace:

'My name is one I do not fear;

'Tis one that thou wouldst shrink to hear.

Go, cool thy penitential fires,

Thou creature, foul with base desires!'

CAMILLO (facing Count Orso).

'The choice is thine!'

COUNT ORSO (draws).

'The choice is made!'

CHORUS (narrowing its circle).

'Familiar is that naked blade.

Of others, of himself, the fate

How swift 'tis Provocation's mate!'

MICHIELLA (torn with jealous rage).

'Yea; I could smite her on the face.

Father, first read the thing's disgrace.

I grudge them, honourable death.

Put poison in their latest breath!'

ORSO (his left arm extended).

'You twain are sundered: hear with awe

The judgement of the Source of Law.'

CAMILLA (smiling confidently).

'Not such, when I was at the Source,

It said to me;—but take thy course.'

ORSO (astounded).

'Thither thy steps were bent?'

MICHIELLA (spurning verbal controversy).

'She feigns!

A thousand swords are in my veins.

Friends! soldiers I strike them down, the pair!'

CAMILLO (on guard, clasping his wife).

''Tis well! I cry, to all we share.

Yea, life or death, 'tis well! 'tis well!'

MICHIELLA (stamps her foot).

'My heart 's a vessel tossed on hell!'

LEONARDO (aside).

'Not in glad nuptials ends the day.'

ORSO (to Camilla).

'What is thy purpose with us?—say !'

CAMILLA (lowly).

'Unto my Father I have crossed

For tidings of my Mother lost.'

ORSO.

'Thy mother dead!'

CAMILLA.

'She lives!'

MICHIELLA.

'Thou liest!

The tablets of the tomb defiest!

The Fates denounce, the Furies chase

The wretch who lies in Reason's face.'

CAMILLA.

'Fly, then; for we are match'd to try

Which is the idiot, thou or I'

MICHIELLA.

Graceless Camilla!'

ORSO

'Senseless girl!

I cherished thee a precious pearl,

And almost owned thee child of mine.'