Chapter XVI: On the Stage

"For ill can Poetry express
Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And Painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but a glance of time.
But, by the mighty actor brought,
Illusion's perfect triumphs come;
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And sculpture to be dumb."--CAMPBELL.

Piale had gained the wish of his heart, but, like many other people, he discovered that, when gained, it proved more of a care than a pleasure. He had plotted and planned, he had argued and persuaded, and now at length his best pupil was really to appear on the operatic stage, but nevertheless the old Maestro was far from happy; he was haunted by the conviction that Carlo's health would give way, for he knew him too well not to perceive how sorely the events of the last few weeks had taxed his powers of endurance. It was all very well for him to prescribe perfect quiet when the hours of study were over, but he knew that at the Palazzo Forti quiet was not likely to be found--knew that wherever he went Carlo would be haunted by the spectre of his vanished happiness. Often did he anathematize Captain Britton and the insular prejudice which had cost his pupil so dear; often did he rack his brains for some means of cheering the _débutant_.

Carlo was, indeed, very much altered; for the time he lost the boyish look which had always before been one of his characteristics; he lost, too, his fresh, ruddy color; and, whereas he had hitherto been habitually gay, and only upon occasion grave, he was now only cheerful when, by a deliberate effort of will, he forced himself to be so. It was not in those first days of his trouble that he could all at once attain to the serenity of a perfectly disciplined heart. He was human, and he was very young; the light of his life had gone out, and he did not always acquiesce in the darkness,--did not, except in rare intervals of comfort, feel anything but an aching void, an unconquerable longing for his own will to be done.

Not being of a self-tormenting nature, however, he did not trouble himself much about the right or wrong of his feelings; as far as possible he ignored them, and went on deliberately with the everyday business of the life he had chosen. Piale worked his voice as hard as he dared, and the professor of declamation taught him all that he had the power to teach; but Carlo, altogether dissatisfied with the scanty attention paid to acting on the operatic stage, studied his characters with a minute faithfulness which occupied him even in his times of so-called leisure; he was incessantly studying, incessantly observing, and, after three weeks of this sort of work, his heart began, as it were, to thaw; the personal grief which had held it frost-bound was softened by the wide love of the human family which cannot fail to be quickened in the heart of any one who truly observes life. For to observe truly you must sympathize with those you observe, and to sympathize with them you must love them, and to love them you must forget yourself. Without a deep, living sympathy the artist surely degenerates into a species of vivisectionist, for

"To be observed when observation is not sympathy
Is just to be tortured."

Carlo soon found the happiness which comes to the worker who is really suited to his work. He learnt to be very grateful to his newly-chosen profession, for it brought him hours of forgetfulness, it raised him above the atmosphere of petty misery which seemed to prevail at the Palazzo Forti, it made him conscious that he had not chosen his life with headstrong blindness, but that he had gifts for which he was responsible,--gifts which made the life of a singer his true vocation. In those days of his trouble he worked with all his might, and the tremendous effort of memory he had to make stood him in good stead, and forced him to keep his grief at arm's length.

Piale saw with relief that he was apparently not in the least nervous, that he was entirely free at present from all fear of failure, but the old Maestro was too experienced a hand to imagine that this calmness would last.

"You go to your ordeal with a better heart than most _débutants_," he remarked one day, looking curiously into the face of his pupil. "But you have good reason to be cheerful about it, for you are safe to be popular."

"On the contrary," said Carlo, with a smile. "I am told that ten to one Comerio will organize a _claque_, and try to get me hissed off. I'm not at all confident of being popular, but I know that I have in any case to be a singer."

"There speaks the true artist," said Piale, with enthusiasm. "Did I not tell you long ago that Nature meant this for your calling?"

"Yes, dear Maestro," he replied, quietly. "And you were right, and I was wrong, as events have proved."

Piale hardly understood all that he meant; he looked up at him again with the lingering, scrutinizing, anxious gaze of a painter who takes a last look at a finished picture.

"If only your health is equal to the life," he exclaimed, with a sigh, for he could not but admit to himself that during the last few weeks there had developed in his pupil's face a look of constitutional delicacy, which, after all, was a natural enough inheritance to the son of Signor Donati.

But Carlo laughed lightly, and put the suggestion aside.

"Why, Maestro," he exclaimed, "I have never been ill in my life; and surely, if my sister has been able to bear the work all this time, you need not fear for a tough fellow like me!"

"Well, I hope you will understand as well as Madame Merlino how to take care of yourself," said Piale, in the tone of a doubter.

As he walked home Carlo for the first time studied the placards which announced a second series of operas at the Mercadante, with the Company of Signor Merlino. On Tuesday evening Gounod's Faust, and, below, a list of the characters:--"_Faust_, Signor Sardoni; _Mefistofele_, Signor Merlino; _Valentino_, Signor Carlo Donati; _Wagner_, Signor Gomez; _Marghérita_, Madame Merlino; _Siebel_, Mlle. Borelli; _Marta_, Mlle. Duroc." Just above was pasted a narrow strip of yellow paper, contrasting boldly with the pink placard, and upon this, in large black letters, was printed,

"DEBUTTO DI SIGNOR CARLO DONATI."

He was startled and rather ashamed to find that the mere reading of the announcement made him tremble from head to foot. At the next opportunity he questioned Sardoni.

"How do people feel at their first appearance?" he said, with an air of curiosity, which was nevertheless a little anxious.

"Oh!" said Sardoni, with his careless laugh. "Some feel as if they were going to be hung, others as if they were entering one of the chambers of the Inquisition. Comerio, I believe, used to say that he had suffered more acutely when he went to be married, and Bauer declares that it was not half so bad to him as a visit to the dentist."

"And you?" asked Carlo. "How did you feel about it?"

"I hardly know--besides, I should be no guide to you, for we are as different as chalk and cheese. I think I was in too dare-devil a frame to feel at all."

"I can understand better to-day how Valentino felt before his first battle," said Carlo, musingly.

Sardoni laughed.

"I do believe you think of your parts night and day!" he exclaimed. "I declare I'm half afraid of you. You will be so much in earnest that you'll kill me in the duel scene, and that would be awkward. What do you say to a private rehearsal now? It's as well you have to fight me and not Gomez, for he hates you like poison; and what could be easier than to stick you by mistake on the stage, and get you out of his friend's way?"

"What with you and Piale it will be hard if I don't turn into a coward and a valetudinarian," said Carlo. "The Maestro does nothing but fear the breakdown of my health, and you are always warning me of hidden dangers from Comerio and his allies."

"We only wish to instil a little prudence into your knight-errantry," said Sardoni.

The change of baritones had been much discussed in Merlino's Company, and Carlo had to run the gauntlet of criticism, while feeling bewildered at the endless introductions to his new companions; he thought he should never learn to know them all, and the fact that he was Madame Merlino's brother was not in his favor, for Anita was not popular, and Carlo was sufficiently like her in face to make them prejudiced against him. Moreover, they all regarded him as a sort of amateur, and were inclined to resent his sudden change of profession, while Comerio's unexpected dismissal was by some deemed unjust.

His heart failed him a little at the thought of casting in his lot entirely with these not very congenial people; even in Domenica Borelli he was disappointed, she seemed to him cold and reserved and exclusive; he supposed that the very qualities which repelled him seemed to Sardoni's English eyes recommendations. Marioni, the conductor, received him with mingled coldness and anxiety; and had it not been for Sardoni's friendship he would have been in a most uncomfortable position. But all this improved after the first rehearsal; the conductor speedily thawed, and he began to understand better the stiff armor of propriety in which Domenica Borelli encased herself, and the alarming American frankness of Mlle. Duroc.

And so at last the great day came. Carlo awoke to the consciousness, but was surprised to find how indifferent he felt about it; perhaps he had been through too much of late to suffer very greatly from apprehension, or perhaps he had not yet realized how great the ordeal would be. In the most matter-of-fact way he inspected his hat, hose, and shoes, the only part of his costume which he had to provide for himself; then, having arranged that they should be sent to the theatre, he found himself with the rest of the day on his hands, for Piale had given strict orders that he was only to sing for half-an-hour just before he dined. Suddenly he bethought him of his old friend Florestano, and he felt a desire that the old fisherman should witness his first appearance; so, taking the delighted Gigi with him, he went down to the Piliero, hired a boat, and was rowed to the old fisherman's hut. Florestano, who had all an Italian's love of the theatre, was delighted and flattered at the proposal, and they rowed back with him to Naples, where Carlo took him to the Mercadante that he might choose his own seat; then, with many good wishes, the old boatman went off to his Socialist club, and Carlo having taken Gigi home, returned once more to the Mercadante, begged the keys from the doorkeeper, who was just about to take his _siesta_, and, locking himself into the empty theatre, began to pace the stage, going through, in dumb show, all that he would have to do in the evening. Still he felt strangely indifferent, and he began to think that his nature must be a very prosaic one, not realizing that strong feeling often takes the form of numbness for a time.

Sardoni watched him on his return with the greatest curiosity; he practised his scales for half-an-hour, dined composedly, read the _Piccolo_, played "Tombola" with Gigi, and did his best to avert a quarrel which was brewing between Gomez and Merlino. Finally he went off to the theatre with Piale and Enrico Ritter, and seemed to be so much occupied with cheering the old Maestro, who was in a pitiable state of nervousness, that he had little time to think of himself.

"_Giusto Cielo!_" exclaimed the old man, "I would give all I have were this night's work well over."

And as they went down the stairs Sardoni heard Carlo's rare but delightful laugh as he rallied the Maestro on his depression. Apparently Piale had been advised that it would be better not to be behind the scenes, for when Sardoni reached the theatre he found Carlo alone in the dressing-room which they were to share.

"I thought I should have found your Maestro coaching you up to the last minute," he exclaimed; "it is well he has gone, or his nervousness would have infected you. At present you look as cool as a cucumber."

"Only metaphorically," said Carlo, throwing down the book he had been studying; "this room is like an oven."

"You'll find that is always the way," said Sardoni; "they bake us in summer and freeze us in winter, and, whenever they can manage it, poison us with bad drainage."

The dresser began to urge him to be quick, for as usual Sardoni was behindhand, and had allowed barely time to scramble into his complicated double costume before the call-boy came to summon him. Carlo, who did not appear till the second act, seeing how matters were, and pitying the dresser, who only grew more stupid the more Sardoni swore at him, offered his help, and won the gratitude both of the Englishman and the Italian.

"Now if I'd had Gomez in here he would have made confusion worse confounded," said Sardoni, rushing off in response to a second summons and the alarming news that the overture was ended.

When he returned at the end of the first act he found Carlo almost ready, standing with the patience of a martyr while the dresser put the finishing touches to his costume. He made a wonderfully handsome and soldierly-looking Valentino in his crimson velvet doublet, the conventional amount of stage armor, and the picturesque plumed hat which added so much to his height.

"Tan-colored tights!" exclaimed Sardoni; "that is an improvement on Comerio's get-up; he always insisted on sky-blues, in which he looked like a circus-rider."

The remark roused Carlo from the state of abstraction in which he had for some time been wrapped, and, turning round with a smile, he asked whether the house was good, and if Sardoni had been well received.

"The house is crammed," replied the tenor, "but at present rather cold. Your appearance will stir them up."

"The Signor will be a great success," said the dresser, already won by Carlo's patience and courtesy.

"He carries a brave enough front," said Sardoni; "I should not have thought you would prove such a cool hand."

"Ah, well! it is the first battle of the campaign," said Carlo, with a laugh; "let no man boast till he has been under fire."

"_Per Dio!_ no battle, but a triumph," said the dresser, as he left the room. "Best wishes for your success, signor."

Carlo thanked him, and began in a practical, matter-of-fact way to study the construction of the sword which had to break in two at the challenge of Mephistopheles. Sardoni, to amuse him, told him stories of various stage _contretemps_, and was just marvelling at his companion's perfect composure when Donati suddenly started forward and grasped his arm.

"They have begun the Kermesse chorus!" he gasped.

And then at last the realization broke upon him: he was, after all, Carlo Donati, a novice, with a terrible ordeal before him, and failure would mean ruin. All recollection of his part seemed to leave him. He looked distracted.

"Come and wait at the wings," said Sardoni, "and take a look at the audience. You are sure to do well. Keep up your courage, _amico mio_."

"If it were only fame which depended on it, or only myself----" he faltered, "but to fail means the ruin of all our plans."

"You will not fail, you will succeed, and your plan too; it deserves to. Come!"

With kindly persistence he took his arm and drew him towards the door. The noise without seemed to bewilder Carlo; the orchestra, even at that distance, sounded deafeningly loud in his ears; the clear, joyous chorus of the citizens seemed to mock his wretchedness; he dragged himself on in obedience to Sardoni, who took him to the green room, where they found Anita and Merlino. Nita was crying, and wiping away her tears with anxious care lest they should make too much havoc with her rouge.

"Here is my wife more upset over your _début_ than she was over her own," said Merlino, more pleasantly than Carlo had ever heard him speak before. "Come, Nita, see what a fine figure he cuts as Valentino. You may well be proud of him."

Carlo glanced down at her, vaguely noticing her white dress, her long plaited hair. She did not make up well as Margherita, and he dreaded acting with her because she recalled to him the terrible stake for which he was playing.

"Give me your good wishes, Nita _mia_," he said; and then, disgusted to find how his voice trembled, he turned away and followed Sardoni to the wings. Sick and dizzy he looked out across the crowded stage with its skilfully-grouped soldiers, and students, and citizens, to the section of the house which could be seen. His breath came in short, quick gasps, and his fingers played nervously with his sword-hilt. Sardoni felt intensely curious to see how he would get through his task.

"_Mestier Divin! Mestier Divin!_" shouted the soldiers, and Carlo's fingers tightened on the sword. He became at last able to think of nothing but that the chorus was drawing nearer and nearer to an end, and that at the close would come that dead silence in which he, Carlo Donati, must cross the stage and either fail or succeed. His dresser approached him.

"The charm, signor? You have it all right?"

"I have it, thank you," he replied, and unclasped his hand, where the medal burnt like fire.

"It will soon be over," said Sardoni, cheerfully.

"I know," he gasped, his lips almost refusing to frame the words.

"Oh," said Sardoni, "I meant the ordeal, not the chorus. Look to your goal; that's the only way with a high jump or with this sort of business."

It was all very well to talk of looking to the goal, but just then Carlo was hardly able to see with his bodily eyes much less with the eyes of his imagination. The crowded stage became misty and confused to him; he could no longer distinguish the faces in the audience: they were just a terrible, criticising, impersonal mass.

"_Inutil sarà!_" sang the sopranos.

"_Al primo apparir!_" roared the basses.

And then came the mocking strain once more from the orchestra as the concluding bars of the chorus were played; and all his life long that sweet, blithe air seemed to Carlo like the merriment of Punchinello the clown, who jested with an aching heart. The last chord was crashed out, his hour was come! With a supreme effort he moved forward, and, as the opening bars of his recitative were played, walked mechanically through the little lane which opened for him in the stage crowd. He believed that he must have walked slowly, but his feet seemed no longer his own; he felt as if he were nothing but throbbing heart and bounding pulses, and it was only from force of habit, after so many rehearsals, that he moved to the right place, his eyes fixed on the medal in his hand, which in reality he was too much dazzled even to see.

Suddenly an inspiration came to him. Valentino, too, would be oppressed, troubled, by the merry-making crowd; what did he, with his grief and anxiety, want with all this publicity? He was Valentino--he breathed, thought, looked, and felt like Valentino; and in a voice subdued and sad, but so clear and sweet that it reached to the remotest corner of the gallery, he sang the brief recitative, "_Oh, santa medaglia!_" as he placed the charm on his heart, then glanced quickly, distastefully, at the gay throng surrounding him.

There was a burst of applause which instantly made him feel _en rapport_ with his audience. He advanced to greet Wagner and Siebel, while to Piale and Enrico, in the theatre, and to Nita, at the wings, there came a pang, as Valentino told how he was sad because he was leaving his sister, who had now no other protector; and to many of the audience it was comprehensible that the new baritone's voice should tremble as he uttered the words, "_Mia madre piu non è_."

Already he had the sympathies of the house, but the test of his success would be in the song, "_Dio Possente_" and for this Piale waited in trembling expectation. He need not have feared, however. Not one of the audience had ever heard anything to equal the devotional fervor of the prayer for Margherita's safe keeping, or the manly outburst of martial ardor succeeding it; the song, both in conception and rendering, was perfect; and the Italian audience, which would not have scrupled mercilessly to hiss him had he not altogether pleased them, broke into applause so enthusiastic that Piale hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry, so great was his emotion. The song was vehemently encored, and Carlo's reputation was established.

Even when he was not singing his was the figure upon which all eyes rested, for he was the one man on the stage who was actually living his part; while, in the scene where he drove back Mephistopheles with his cross-handled sword uplifted, and sheltered the retreat of the soldiers, his impassioned assurance that the cross was all-powerful against evil stirred every heart.

"That is a piece of symbolism quite after Carlo's fancy," remarked Enrico Ritter. But for once he did not grumble at the attack on his beloved theory of egoism. He joined in the tumult of applause; and when, at the close of the act, the new baritone was called again and again before the curtain, Enrico felt a thrill of pleasure which he did not take the trouble to analyze.

Meanwhile, Carlo was like a different being; he knew that he had truly found his vocation. The music, the success, the applause, had excited him to the highest pitch, and the sympathy he met with from every one astonished him. Only Gomez held sulkily aloof and said not a word, but the rest were warm in their congratulations. Merlino, with the triumphant sense of having secured a first-rate singer at an unusually small salary, was quite benevolent and fatherly; while, perhaps, Domenica Borelli's words pleased him more than all.

"You are the first real actor I have ever sung with, signor," she said in her grave, low voice. "You have taught me much to-night."

Piale was at last persuaded to return to his place in the audience; and, as Sardoni was pretty constantly on the stage, Carlo was left to himself during his rather long waiting time, He was glad to be alone; he wanted time to realize the great happiness which was still left for him in his darkened life. The sense of having given pleasure to those hundreds of people was in its novelty almost overpowering; and yet, in all his excitement and happiness, there was an under-current of fear, which made him again and again repeat the words, "Not only with our lips, but in our lives."

For though the artist has his triumphs, yet there must always mingle with them the humbling perception of his own incompleteness, the sense that as yet his personal life is far from being the "true poem" he wishes it to be.

There were other thoughts, too, which made him grave; this night's work might, he hoped, prove to be one good, decisive blow in the warfare he was waging for Anita's deliverance, but it also meant his more complete severance from Francesca; with a sigh he wondered if any news of his success would reach her.

All his nervousness had now disappeared, and when once more he went to the wings his heart beat high with hope, and the inspiriting march roused every soldierly instinct within him, contrasting strangely with the Kermesse Chorus which had so jarred upon him as he waited for his first entrance.

Once more his acting carried all before it. The pathos of his happy ignorance, his eager welcome of Siebel, and his breathless inquiry for Margherita, his utter absence of suspicion and his martial enthusiasm, appealed to everyone. Then, when at last Siebel contrived to hint to him that all was not well, his agony of suspense as he questioned the boy, and his grief and despair when he learnt all the truth, though it could be conveyed alone by look and gesture, moved the people to tears.

Merlino's creditable rendering of the "Serenata" received less notice than might have been expected, but the audience were eagerly awaiting the reappearance of the _débutant_, and the passionate indignation of his meeting with Faust and Mephistopheles seemed to stir all hearts. Other baritones had sung Gounod's music well, but this man not only sang magnificently, but transformed himself into Valentino, giving them by his genuine dramatic talent such a notion of the character as they never had before, and out of a comparatively small part creating the chief interest of the opera. Breathlessly they watched the duel which, for once, seemed real and life-like. The avenger had the sympathies of the house, and when, mortally wounded, he staggered to his feet again in pursuit of his foe only to fall a second time, there were few dry eyes in the theatre, for into the mere dumb action he had infused a rare pathos, and had made them understand the strong vitality that yet lingered in the dying soldier.

Both the singing and the acting in the death-scene were exceptionally fine; the mingling of wrath and grief, denunciation and reproachful love, which he managed to convey in his last words with Margherita appealed to all, while at the end he produced a novel effect. With panting breath, and with more of sorrow than of anger, he sang, "_Tu morrai tra cenci vil_." Then, suddenly diverted from the present, he pressed to his lips the cross on his sword-hilt which one of his fellow-soldiers held towards him, and afterwards turning again towards Margherita with a look so beautiful that once seen it could never be forgotten, sang with a depth of tenderness the brief--"I die for thee," kissed her bowed head, with a sort of triumphant resignation gasped the last--"Like a soldier I die!" and fell back lifeless.

Feeling much more like Valentino's ghost than like himself, he went forward again and again to receive the plaudits of the people; then, warned by Merlino that he would certainly be called for at the close of the opera, he flung on his own hat and cloak over the Valentino costume, and with an irresistible craving for fresh air and darkness rushed from the theatre. At the stage-door he encountered Piale and old Florestano.

"Why, my friend," he exclaimed, turning to the fisherman, "you will miss the best part of the opera."

"It's naught to me now, signor," said the old man; "it ended for me at your death. I'll take my boat at the Piliero and be starting home."

"I will walk part of the way with you," said Carlo.

And with Piale on his other side, he strode along, drinking down deep breaths of the cool night air, and realizing with a relief indescribable that the horrors he had been living through were, after all, not real.

Never had hope been so strong within him as when he parted with old Florestano and walked back with Piale to the Mercadante. He had left behind him despair, and gloom, and failure--they seemed to have died with Valentino, while within him there had arisen a buoyant expectation--almost an assurance--that his work would not be in vain, that Nita would be saved. Francesca's sweet voice seemed to be saying to him again and again, '_Pazienza! Pazienza!_' while the very first sound that reached him on returning to the theatre was the chorus of angels with their ringing cry of "_E salva!_" Then, when the final chorus, "_Cristo risuscito_," had died away into silence, he heard amid the clapping loud cries for "Donati," and with that the Italians call "_una stretta al cuore_," he led Anita before the curtain, and once more received the plaudits of his fellow-citizens. Behind the curtain, the very scene-shifters and carpenters were eager to congratulate him; Marioni, the conductor, was ready to swear an eternal friendship; Merlino beamed upon him complacently; Piale shed tears of happiness; and it became evident that Carlo, for the time being, would prove the idol of the Neapolitan world.

Next afternoon, when by sober daylight he read the accounts of his first appearance in Enrico's office, his friend, with a cynical smile, exclaimed, "Your head will be turned with all this triumph."

And then suddenly there flashed upon Carlo the vision of what he had forfeited. He was too simple-hearted, too genuinely honest, not to enjoy to the full his artistic success; but he thought to himself there was not much fear that the man who had lost Francesca Britton would be dazzled by such delights as public approval can bring.