The Torrents of Spring | Page 7

the paltry tenors of to-day--tenoracci;
always from the chest, from the chest, voce di petto, si!' and the old
man aimed a vigorous blow with his little shrivelled fist at his own
shirt-front! 'And what an actor! A volcano, signori miei, a volcano, un
Vesuvio! I had the honour and the happiness of singing with him in the
opera dell' illustrissimo maestro Rossini--in Otello! Garcia was
Otello,--I was Iago--and when he rendered the phrase':--here
Pantaleone threw himself into an attitude and began singing in a hoarse
and shaky, but still moving voice:
"L'i ... ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato lo più no ... no ... no ... non
temerò!"
The theatre was all a-quiver, signori miei! though I too did not fall
short, I too after him.
"L'i ra daver ... so daver ... so il fato Temèr più non davro!"

And all of a sudden, he crashed like lightning, like a tiger: Morro!... ma
vendicato ... Again when he was singing ... when he was singing that
celebrated air from "Matrimonio segreto," Pria che spunti ... then he, il
gran Garcia, after the words, "I cavalli di galoppo"--at the words,
"Senza posa cacciera,"--listen, how stupendous, come è stupendo! At
that point he made ...' The old man began a sort of extraordinary
flourish, and at the tenth note broke down, cleared his throat, and with a
wave of his arm turned away, muttering, 'Why do you torment me?'
Gemma jumped up at once and clapping loudly and shouting, bravo!...
bravo!... she ran to the poor old super-annuated Iago and with both
hands patted him affectionately on the shoulders. Only Emil laughed
ruthlessly. Cet âge est sans pitié--that age knows no mercy--Lafontaine
has said already.
Sanin tried to soothe the aged singer and began talking to him in
Italian--(he had picked up a smattering during his last tour
there)--began talking of 'paese del Dante, dove il si suona.' This phrase,
together with 'Lasciate ogni speranza,' made up the whole stock of
poetic Italian of the young tourist; but Pantaleone was not won over by
his blandishments. Tucking his chin deeper than ever into his cravat
and sullenly rolling his eyes, he was once more like a bird, an angry
one too,--a crow or a kite. Then Emil, with a faint momentary blush,
such as one so often sees in spoilt children, addressing his sister, said if
she wanted to entertain their guest, she could do nothing better than
read him one of those little comedies of Malz, that she read so nicely.
Gemma laughed, slapped her brother on the arm, exclaimed that he
'always had such ideas!' She went promptly, however, to her room, and
returning thence with a small book in her hand, seated herself at the
table before the lamp, looked round, lifted one finger as much as to say,
'hush!'--a typically Italian gesture--and began reading.

VII
Malz was a writer flourishing at Frankfort about 1830, whose short
comedies, written in a light vein in the local dialect, hit off local
Frankfort types with bright and amusing, though not deep, humour. It

turned out that Gemma really did read excellently--quite like an actress
in fact. She indicated each personage, and sustained the character
capitally, making full use of the talent of mimicry she had inherited
with her Italian blood; she had no mercy on her soft voice or her lovely
face, and when she had to represent some old crone in her dotage, or a
stupid burgomaster, she made the drollest grimaces, screwing up her
eyes, wrinkling up her nose, lisping, squeaking.... She did not herself
laugh during the reading; but when her audience (with the exception of
Pantaleone: he had walked off in indignation so soon as the
conversation turned o quel ferroflucto Tedesco) interrupted her by an
outburst of unanimous laughter, she dropped the book on her knee, and
laughed musically too, her head thrown back, and her black hair
dancing in little ringlets on her neck and her shaking shoulders. When
the laughter ceased, she picked up the book at once, and again
resuming a suitable expression, began the reading seriously. Sanin
could not get over his admiration; he was particularly astonished at the
marvellous way in which a face so ideally beautiful assumed suddenly
a comic, sometimes almost a vulgar expression. Gemma was less
successful in the parts of young girls--of so-called 'jeunes premières'; in
the love-scenes in particular she failed; she was conscious of this
herself, and for that reason gave them a faint shade of irony as though
she did not quite believe in all these rapturous vows and elevated
sentiments, of which the author, however, was himself rather
sparing--so far as he could be.
Sanin did not notice how the evening was flying by, and only
recollected the