Gambara | Page 9

proportion and rich
coloring that revealed one of those organizations in which every human
power is harmoniously balanced, he sounded the gulf that divided this
couple, brought together by fate. Well content with the promise he
inferred from this dissimilarity between the husband and wife, he made
no attempt to control a liking which ought to have raised a barrier

between the fair Marianna and himself. He was already conscious of
feeling a sort of respectful pity for this man, whose only joy she was, as
he understood the dignified and serene acceptance of ill fortune that
was expressed in Gambara's mild and melancholy gaze.
After expecting to see one of the grotesque figures so often set before
us by German novelists and writers of /libretti/, he beheld a simple,
unpretentious man, whose manners and demeanor were in nothing
strange and did not lack dignity. Without the faintest trace of luxury,
his dress was more decent than might have been expected from his
extreme poverty, and his linen bore witness to the tender care which
watched over every detail of his existence. Andrea looked at Marianna
with moistened eyes; and she did not color, but half smiled, in a way
that betrayed, perhaps, some pride at this speechless homage. The
Count, too thoroughly fascinated to miss the smallest indication of
complaisance, fancied that she must love him, since she understood
him so well.
From this moment he set himself to conquer the husband rather than the
wife, turning all his batteries against the poor Gambara, who quite
guilelessly went on eating Signor Giardini's /bocconi/, without thinking
of their flavor.
The Count opened the conversation on some trivial subject, but at the
first words he perceived that this brain, supposed to be infatuated on
one point, was remarkably clear on all others, and saw that it would be
far more important to enter into this very clever man's ideas than to
flatter his conceits.
The rest of the company, a hungry crew whose brain only responded to
the sight of a more or less good meal, showed much animosity to the
luckless Gambara, and waited only till the end of the first course, to
give free vent to their satire. A refugee, whose frequent leer betrayed
ambitious schemes on Marianna, and who fancied he could establish
himself in her good graces by trying to make her husband ridiculous,
opened fire to show the newcomer how the land lay at the table-d'hote.
"It is a very long time since we have heard anything about the opera on
'Mahomet'!" cried he, with a smile at Marianna. "Can it be that Paolo
Gambara, wholly given up to domestic cares, absorbed by the charms
of the chimney-corner, is neglecting his superhuman genius, leaving his
talents to get cold and his imagination to go flat?"

Gambara knew all the company; he dwelt in a sphere so far above them
all that he no longer cared to repel an attack. He made no reply.
"It is not given to everybody," said the journalist, "to have an intellect
that can understand Monsieur Gambara's musical efforts, and that, no
doubt, is why our divine maestro hesitates to come before the worthy
Parisian public."
"And yet," said the ballad-monger, who had not opened his mouth but
to swallow everything that came within his reach, "I know some men of
talent who think highly of the judgments of Parisian critics. I myself
have a pretty reputation as a musician," he went on, with an air of
diffidence. "I owe it solely to my little songs in /vaudevilles/, and the
success of my dance music in drawing-rooms; but I propose ere long to
bring out a mass composed for the anniversary of Beethoven's death,
and I expect to be better appreciated in Paris than anywhere else. You
will perhaps do me the honor of hearing it?" he said, turning to Andrea.
"Thank you," said the Count. "But I do not conceive that I am gifted
with the organs needful for the appreciation of French music. If you
were dead, monsieur, and Beethoven had composed the mass, I would
not have failed to attend the performance."
This retort put an end to the tactics of those who wanted to set Gambara
off on his high horse to amuse the new guest. Andrea was already
conscious of an unwillingness to expose so noble and pathetic a mania
as a spectacle for so much vulgar shrewdness. It was with no base
reservation that he kept up a desultory conversation, in the course of
which Signor Giardini's nose not infrequently interposed between two
remarks. Whenever Gambara uttered some elegant repartee or some
paradoxical aphorism, the cook put his head forward, to glance with
pity at the musician and with meaning at the Count, muttering in his ear,
"/E