第12章

Fu stupor, fu vaghezza, fu diletto!

"Gerusal.Lib.," cant.ii.xxi.

("Desire it was, 't was wonder, 't was delight."Wiffen's Translation.)

Now at last the education is accomplished! Viola is nearly sixteen.The Cardinal declares that the time is come when the new name must be inscribed in the Libro d'Oro,--the Golden Book set apart to the children of Art and Song.Yes, but in what character?--to whose genius is she to give embodiment and form?

Ah, there is the secret! Rumours go abroad that the inexhaustible Paisiello, charmed with her performance of his "Nel cor piu non me sento," and his "Io son Lindoro," will produce some new masterpiece to introduce the debutante.Others insist upon it that her forte is the comic, and that Cimarosa is hard at work at another "Matrimonia Segreto." But in the meanwhile there is a check in the diplomacy somewhere.The Cardinal is observed to be out of humour.He has said publicly,--and the words are portentous,--"The silly girl is as mad as her father; what she asks is preposterous!" Conference follows conference; the Cardinal talks to the poor child very solemnly in his closet,--all in vain.Naples is distracted with curiosity and conjecture.

The lecture ends in a quarrel, and Viola comes home sullen and pouting: she will not act,--she has renounced the engagement.

Pisani, too inexperienced to be aware of all the dangers of the stage, had been pleased at the notion that one, at least, of his name would add celebrity to his art.The girl's perverseness displeased him.However, he said nothing,--he never scolded in words, but he took up the faithful barbiton.Oh, faithful barbiton, how horribly thou didst scold! It screeched, it gabbled, it moaned, it growled.And Viola's eyes filled with tears, for she understood that language.She stole to her mother, and whispered in her ear; and when Pisani turned from his employment, lo! both mother and daughter were weeping.He looked at them with a wondering stare; and then, as if he felt he had been harsh, he flew again to his Familiar.And now you thought you heard the lullaby which a fairy might sing to some fretful changeling it had adopted and sought to soothe.Liquid, low, silvery, streamed the tones beneath the enchanted bow.The most stubborn grief would have paused to hear; and withal, at times, out came a wild, merry, ringing note, like a laugh, but not mortal laughter.It was one of his most successful airs from his beloved opera,--the Siren in the act of charming the waves and the winds to sleep.Heaven knows what next would have come, but his arm was arrested.Viola had thrown herself on his breast, and kissed him, with happy eyes that smiled through her sunny hair.At that very moment the door opened,--a message from the Cardinal.Viola must go to his Eminence at once.Her mother went with her.All was reconciled and settled; Viola had her way, and selected her own opera.O ye dull nations of the North, with your broils and debates,--your bustling lives of the Pnyx and the Agora!--you cannot guess what a stir throughout musical Naples was occasioned by the rumour of a new opera and a new singer.But whose the opera? No cabinet intrigue ever was so secret.Pisani came back one night from the theatre, evidently disturbed and irate.Woe to thine ears hadst thou heard the barbiton that night! They had suspended him from his office,--they feared that the new opera, and the first debut of his daughter as prima donna, would be too much for his nerves.And his variations, his diablerie of sirens and harpies, on such a night, made a hazard not to be contemplated without awe.To be set aside, and on the very night that his child, whose melody was but an emanation of his own, was to perform,--set aside for some new rival: it was too much for a musician's flesh and blood.

For the first time he spoke in words upon the subject, and gravely asked--for that question the barbiton, eloquent as it was, could not express distinctly--what was to be the opera, and what the part? And Viola as gravely answered that she was pledged to the Cardinal not to reveal.Pisani said nothing, but disappeared with the violin; and presently they heard the Familiar from the house-top (whither, when thoroughly out of humour, the musician sometimes fled), whining and sighing as if its heart were broken.