The Torrents of Spring | Page 6

vast and remote fatherland; Signora Roselli, or
as she was more often called, Frau Lenore, positively dumfoundered
Sanin with the question, whether there was still existing at Petersburg
the celebrated house of ice, built last century, about which she had
lately read a very curious article in one of her husband's books,
'Bettezze delle arti.' And in reply to Sanin's exclamation, 'Do you really
suppose that there is never any summer in Russia?' Frau Lenore replied
that till then she had always pictured Russia like this--eternal snow,
every one going about in furs, and all military men, but the greatest
hospitality, and all the peasants very submissive! Sanin tried to impart
to her and her daughter some more exact information. When the
conversation touched on Russian music, they begged him at once to
sing some Russian air and showed him a diminutive piano with black
keys instead of white and white instead of black. He obeyed without
making much ado and accompanying himself with two fingers of the

right hand and three of the left (the first, second, and little finger) he
sang in a thin nasal tenor, first 'The Sarafan,' then 'Along a Paved
Street.' The ladies praised his voice and the music, but were more
struck with the softness and sonorousness of the Russian language and
asked for a translation of the text. Sanin complied with their
wishes--but as the words of 'The Sarafan,' and still more of 'Along a
Paved Street' (sur une rue pavée une jeune fille allait à l'eau was how
he rendered the sense of the original) were not calculated to inspire his
listeners with an exalted idea of Russian poetry, he first recited, then
translated, and then sang Pushkin's, 'I remember a marvellous moment,'
set to music by Glinka, whose minor bars he did not render quite
faithfully. Then the ladies went into ecstasies. Frau Lenore positively
discovered in Russian a wonderful likeness to the Italian. Even the
names Pushkin (she pronounced it Pussekin) and Glinka sounded
somewhat familiar to her. Sanin on his side begged the ladies to sing
something; they too did not wait to be pressed. Frau Lenore sat down to
the piano and sang with Gemma some duets and 'stornelle.' The mother
had once had a fine contralto; the daughter's voice was not strong, but
was pleasing.

VI
But it was not Gemma's voice--it was herself Sanin was admiring. He
was sitting a little behind and on one side of her, and kept thinking to
himself that no palm-tree, even in the poems of Benediktov--the poet in
fashion in those days--could rival the slender grace of her figure. When,
at the most emotional passages, she raised her eyes upwards--it seemed
to him no heaven could fail to open at such a look! Even the old man,
Pantaleone, who with his shoulder propped against the doorpost, and
his chin and mouth tucked into his capacious cravat, was listening
solemnly with the air of a connoisseur--even he was admiring the girl's
lovely face and marvelling at it, though one would have thought he
must have been used to it! When she had finished the duet with her
daughter, Frau Lenore observed that Emilio had a fine voice, like a
silver bell, but that now he was at the age when the voice changes--he
did, in fact, talk in a sort of bass constantly falling into falsetto--and

that he was therefore forbidden to sing; but that Pantaleone now really
might try his skill of old days in honour of their guest! Pantaleone
promptly put on a displeased air, frowned, ruffled up his hair, and
declared that he had given it all up long ago, though he could certainly
in his youth hold his own, and indeed had belonged to that great period,
when there were real classical singers, not to be compared to the
squeaking performers of to-day! and a real school of singing; that he,
Pantaleone Cippatola of Varese, had once been brought a laurel wreath
from Modena, and that on that occasion some white doves had
positively been let fly in the theatre; that among others a Russian prince
Tarbusky--'il principe Tarbusski'--with whom he had been on the most
friendly terms, had after supper persistently invited him to Russia,
promising him mountains of gold, mountains!... but that he had been
unwilling to leave Italy, the land of Dante--il paese del Dante!
Afterward, to be sure, there came ... unfortunate circumstances, he had
himself been imprudent.... At this point the old man broke off, sighed
deeply twice, looked dejected, and began again talking of the classical
period of singing, of the celebrated tenor Garcia, for whom he
cherished a devout, unbounded veneration. 'He was a man!' he
exclaimed. 'Never had the great Garcia (il gran Garcia) demeaned
himself by singing falsetto like