A Roman Singer | Page 8

De Pretis came round the corner, looking for us. But I was astonished to see him bow low to the foreigner and the young lady, and then stop and enter into conversation with them. They spoke quite audibly, and it was about a lesson that the young lady had missed. She spoke like a Roman, but the old gentleman made himself understood in a series of stiff phrases, which he fired out of his mouth like discharges of musketry.
"Who are they?" whispered Nino to me, breathless with excitement and trembling from head to foot. "Who are they, and how does the maestro know them?"
"Eh, caro mio, what am I to know?" I answered indifferently. "They are some foreigners, some pupil of De Pretis, and her father. How should I know?"
"She is a Roman," said Nino between his teeth. "I have heard foreigners talk. The old man is a foreigner, but she--she is Roman," he repeated with certainty.
"Eh," said I, "for my part she may be Chinese. The stars will not fall on that account." You see, I thought he had seen her before, and I wanted to exasperate him by my indifference so that he should tell me; but he would not, and indeed I found out afterwards that he had really never seen her before.
Presently the lady and gentleman went away, and we called De Pretis, for he could not see us in the gloom. Nino became very confidential and linked an arm in his as we went away.
"Who are they, caro maestro, these enchanting people?" inquired the boy when they had gone a few steps, and I was walking by Nino's side, and we were all three nearing the door.
"Foreigners--my foreigners," returned the singer proudly, as he took a colossal pinch of snuff. He seemed to say that he in his profession was constantly thrown with people like that, whereas I--oh, I, of course, was always occupied with students and poor devils who had no voice, nothing but brains.
"But she," objected Nino,--"she is Roman, I am sure of it."
"Eh," said Ercole, "you know how it is. These foreigners marry and come here and live, and their children are born here; and they grow up and call themselves Romans, as proudly as you please. But they are not really Italians, any more than the Shah of Persia." The maestro smiled a pitying smile. He is a Roman of Rome, and his great nose scorns pretenders. In his view Piedmontese, Tuscans, and Neapolitans are as much foreigners as the Germans or the English. More so, for he likes the Germans and tolerates the English, but he can call an enemy by no worse name than "Napoletano" or "Piemontese."
"Then they live here?" cried Nino in delight.
"Surely."
"In fine, maestro mio, who are they?"
"What a diavolo of a boy! Dio mio!" and Ercole laughed under his big moustache, which is black still. But he is bald, all the same, and wears a skull-cap.
"Diavolo as much as you please, but I will know," said Nino sullenly.
"Oh bene! Now do not disquiet yourself, Nino--I will tell you all about them. She is a pupil of mine, and I go to their house in the Corso and give her lessons."
"And then?" asked Nino impatiently.
"Who goes slowly goes surely," said the maestro sententiously; and he stopped to light a cigar as black and twisted as his moustache. Then he continued, standing still in the middle of the piazza to talk at his ease, for it had stopped raining and the air was moist and sultry, "They are Prussians, you must know. The old man is a colonel, retired, pensioned, everything you like, wounded at K?niggratz by the Austrians. His wife was delicate, and he brought her to live here long before he left the service, and the signorina was born here. He has told me about it, and he taught me to pronounce the name K?niggratz, so--Conigherazzo," said the maestro proudly, "and that is how I know."
"Capperi! What a mouthful," said I.
"You may well say that, Sor Conte, but singing teaches us all languages. You would have found it of great use in your studies." I pictured to myself a quarter of an hour of Schopenhauer, with a piano accompaniment and some one beating time.
"But their name, their name I want to know," objected Nino, as he stepped aside and flattened himself against the pillar to let a carriage pass. As luck would have it, the old officer and his daughter were in that very cab, and Nino could just make them out by the evening twilight. He took off his hat, of course, but I am quite sure they did not see him.
"Well, their name is prettier than Conigherazzo," said Ercole. "It is Lira--Erre Gheraffe fonne Lira." (Herr Graf von Lira, I suppose he meant. And