CHAPTER I
"Diva Potens"
Quinto Lalli was the name by which the prima donna had presented the oldgentleman who had shared her travelling-carriage to the MarcheseLamberto as her father. And Quinto Lalli was his real name; but he wasnot really her father. Nor had she any legitimate claim to the name ofLalli. She had never been known by any other, however, during the wholeof her theatrical career; and there were very few persons in any of themany cities where the Lalli was famous, who had any idea that the oldman who always accompanied her was not her father. Indeed, Bianca had solong been accustomed to call and to consider him as such, that she oftenwell nigh forgot herself that he held no such relationship to her.
The real facts of the case were very simple, and had nothing romanticabout them. Old Lalli was a man of great musical gifts and knowledge. Hehad been a singing-master in his day; an impresario too for a shorttime; and sometimes a kind of broker, or middle-man between singers inwant of an engagement and managers seeking for "available talent;" and ahunter-up of talent not yet available, but which, it might be hoped,would one day become such.
It was in the pursuit of his avocations of this latter sort, that he hadone day, about fifteen years before the date of the circumstancesnarrated in the last chapter, chanced to meet with a little girl, thensome twelve years old, on the hopes of whose future success he hadresolved to build his own fortunes. It was time that he should find somefoundation for them, if they were ever to be built at all, which most ofthose who knew Signor Quinto Lalli deemed not a little improbable; forhe was of the sort of men who never do make fortunes.
He was fifty years old when he had met with the little girl in question,and had done nothing yet towards laying the foundations of any sort offortune. Unstable, improvident, unthrifty, fond of pleasure, and notfond of work, nothing had succeeded with him. Nevertheless, a clevererman in his own line, or a shrewder judge of the article he dealt in,than Quinto Lalli did not exist in all Italy. And his judgment did notfail him when he fell in with little Bianca degli Innocenti.
Persons unacquainted with Italian things and ways might suppose that theabove modification of the "particle noble" in Bianca's family name wasindicative of a very aristocratic origin. Italians, however--andspecially Tuscans--would draw a different conclusion from the premises.The family "Degli Innocenti" is very frequently met with in Tuscany; butthe bearers of the name do not, for the most part, take great heed oftheir family ties. The "Innocenti," in a word, is the name of thefoundling-hospital in Florence; and those of whose origin nothing isknown save that they have been brought up by that charity, are oftencalled after it, and known by no other name. Little Bianca's father, orpossibly her grandfather, must have been some such Jem, Jack, or Bob "ofthe Foundlings," and left no other patronymic to his race.
Quinto Lalli fell in with the child one day in the dirty and miserablelittle town of Acquapendente, just on the Roman side of the frontierline dividing the Papal territory from Tuscany, as he was travellingfrom Florence to Rome. He was travelling by the diligence, which alwaysused to remain a good hour or more at Acquapendente, for the transactionof passport and dogana work. There, strolling, for want of somethingbetter to do, through the dilapidated streets of the poverty-strickenlittle town,--which in those days told the traveller most unmistakablyhow great was the difference between prosperous Tuscany, which he hadjust left, and the wretched Pope's-land which he was entering--QuintoLalli heard a child's voice, and instantly stopped and pricked up hisears.
Looking round, he saw a little creature, barely clad, happy amid thesurrounding squalor, sitting with its little bare feet and legs dabblingin the sparkling water in the broken marble tank of a once magnificentfountain. There she sate alone in the sunshine, and carolled, withwide-opened throat, like any other nature-made songster.
Quinto Lalli, with startled ear, listened attentively; got round towhere he could see the child's face; marked well, with knowing eye, thelittle brown feet and legs bare to the knee; and then determined toabandon the fare paid for the remainder of his diligence journey toRome.
The business for the sake of which he made that sacrifice was easily andquickly done. A bargain is not difficult when that which is coveted byone party is deemed a burden and encumbrance by the other. And QuintoLalli became the fortunate purchaser of the article of which he had sojudiciously appreciated the value.
Quinto had his little purchase well and carefully educated--educated herhimself in a great measure, as far as her voice was concerned--and tookcare that every attention was paid, not only to her musical culture, andto the preservation and enhancement of her beauty--which, with greatcomfort as regarded the ultimate issue of his speculation, he saw everyyear that passed over her develop more and more--but also to herintellectual cultivation. For Lalli was a clever man enough to know,that if a stupid singer with a fine voice can charm so as to be worth ahundred, an intelligent singer with an equally fine voice, can charm soas to be worth two hundred.
And the old singing-master was good and kind to his pupil: firstly,because he had no unkindness in his nature, and secondly, because it wasin every way his interest to conciliate the girl. She had been broughtout at eighteen, and had now been nine years on the stage--nine years ofsuccess, which ought to have enriched both teacher and pupil.
They had very soon come to understand each other in matters of interest.Lalli had begun by taking all her large earnings. But Bianca veryquickly let her protector understand that such an arrangement did notmeet her views at all. The ingratitude, when she owed everything to himalone! No, Bianca had no intention to be ungrateful--anzi! she lookedupon Lalli as her father, and hoped she always should do so; but she hadno intention of being treated like a child. So long as she could earnanything, her adopted father should want for nothing. She asked nothingbetter than to continue to live with him, and work for both of them.
And, in truth, her grateful kindness and fondness for the old man whomshe had so long looked on as a father was Bianca's strongest point inthe way of moral excellence. In all their nine years of partnership shehad worked for him as much as for herself. But her nine years of successought to have made both the old man and his adopted daughter comfortablywell off. And it had done nothing of the kind.
They had laid by nothing. Old Quinto had all his life been recklesslyextravagant and thriftless; and his mode of education had not madeBianca less so. If he was fond of dissipation and pleasure, she was notless fond of them on her side. Careful as her education had been, it washardly to be expected that it should have been eminently successful informing a high standard of moral character. The demands made by societyupon its members in general in the clime and time in question were notof a very exacting nature; and the expectations of society in thisrespect from a person in Bianca's position were more moderate still. Norwere the precepts, counsels, example, or wisdom of her protector at allcalculated to guide the beautiful singer scatheless through the dangersand difficulties incidental to her position.
In short, for nine years Bianca had worked hard--had earned a great dealof money, and had spent it all (except what Lalli had spent for her) indissipation, the sharers in which had been chosen by the beautifulactress--as kissing goes--by favour, and not with any view to theirability to pay the cost.
And now La Lalli had reached her twenty-seventh year; and was verynearly as poor as when she began her career. And certain small warnings,unimportant as yet, and wholly unsuspected, save by herself and oldQuinto, had begun to suggest to her the expediency of thinking a littlefor the future. She and Quinto Lalli had had a very serious conversationon the subject just before the commencement of that season at Milan,which, as has been hinted, had ended somewhat disagreeably for thecharming singer.
The real truth of the matter was that the difficulty in question hadarisen not from any tendency in the lady to behave in the Lombardcapital with more reprehensible levity than, it must unfortunately beadmitted, she had been very well known to have behaved in other placesand on other occasion
s; but from a change in her manners in adiametrically opposite direction. It was a change of tactics, which thestrictest moralist must have admitted to involve an improvement in moralconduct, that got the hardly treated Diva into trouble.
The Austrian Government, as we all know, is, or was, a paternalgovernment-a very paternal government. And the governor who ruled in theLombard capital was quite as much intent on playing the "governor," inthe modern young gentleman's sense of the word, as good old paternalFranz himself in his own Vienna. But this paternal government was not ofthe sort which ignores the well-authenticated fact that "young men willbe young men." On the contrary, it proceeded always, especially asregarded its more distinguished sons, on the largest recognition of thistruth. Wild-oats must be sown; the "governor" knew it, and the lawallowed it. But they should be so sown as to involve as littleprejudicial an after-crop, as may be--as little prejudicial especiallyto those distinguished sons who cannot be expected to refrain from suchnatural sowing.
And enchanting Divas may assist in such sowing, and be tolerated in sodoing by a not too rigidly exacting paternal government--may be held inso assisting not to step beyond the sphere of social functions assignedto them by the natural order of things in a manner too offensive to themild morality of a paternal government, as long as such joint wild-oatcultivation shall in nowise threaten to interfere with the futuretillage of less wild and more profitable crops by those distinguishedyoung scions of noble races, to whose youthful aberrations a paternalgovernment is thus wisely indulgent.
So long, and no longer. Mark it well, enchanting Divas. Enchant if youwill; 'tis your function. But do not think to enchain? Enmesh a youngMarchese in the tangles of Neaera's hair. A paternal governor puts hisfingers before his eyes; and lets a smile be seen on his lips beneaththem. But do not seek to bind him by less easily broken ties. A vigilantand moral governor frowns on the instant; and a paternal government wellknows how to protect its distinguished sons by very summary andeffectual process.
But when for a poor Diva there comes also the time when that pleasantwild-oat sowing seems no longer a promising pursuit, what does thepaternal wisdom decree as to her future? Why, she must reap as she hassown--or helped to sow. See ye to it, Divas. Such providence is beyondour function.
And thus it had come to pass that the trouble had arisen which hadresulted in inducing the Diva Bianca to turn her back on ungratefulMilan, and her face towards welcoming Ravenna. In that conferencebetween Bianca and her old friend and counsellor, which has beenmentioned, it had been fully brought home to the Diva's conviction thatfor her the pleasant time of wild-oat sowing had come to an end. "Wouldthat the year were always May." But old Quinto Lalli knew that itwasn't. And it had been concluded between him and his adopted daughterthat it was high time for Bianca to take life au serieux;--to understandthoroughly that noctes coenaeque deum, with champagne suppers and loveamong the roses, must be, if not necessarily abandoned, yet steadilycontemplated as a means and not an end.
What if-- Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, Shakes his light wings, and in a moment flies?
The warning of the verse teaches that the skittish god must not bescared by a premature exhibition of the noose hid beneath the sieve ofcorn. Champagne suppers and love among the roses--yes. But there shouldbe, also, cunningly hidden, the noose among the roses.
And to this wisdom the Diva her well-trained mind did seriously incline,during that last Milan campaign. Nor did her moral aim seem to bewithout good promise of success. The sleek young colts with their shinycoats, glossy, with the rich pastures of the Lombard plains, pranced upand nibbled, all unconscious of the hidden noose. One fine youngunsuspecting animal, the noblest of the herd, came so close to the noosethat Bianca thought her work was done, and was on the point of castingit over his lordly head--and he all but enchanted into such docility asto submit to it, even seeing it.
When lo! with sudden swoop of hand, sharp vibrating police decrees, anunsleeping paternal government darts down the fabric of our hopes, sendsoff the nearly captured prey, loud neighing and with heels kicked highin air, but safe, to his ancestral Lombard pastures, and whirls away thetoo dangerous enchantress into outer space.
Sorrowfully the baffled fair goes forth (a graceful picture somewhereseen of paradise-banished Peri with pretty stooping head, recalls itselfto my mind as I write the words); sorrowfully but not despairing,--andwiser than before.
And yet before she goes seeking fresh fields and pastures new, andmeditating new emprise, wealthy Milan shall itself equip her for thenext campaign. For much of such expedient outfit Milan can supply,which, in remote Ravenna, might in vain be sought. There, beneath theshadow of those marble walls, where once the sainted Borromeo preached,the cunningest Parisian artists may be found--so rich in corn and wineand silk are Lombard plains-modists and mercers, corset-makers, lacemen,skilled so to clothe the limbs of beauty, that every fold shall butdisplay the perfect handiwork of nature, yet add to it the further graceof art. Makers of tiny slippers and such dainty bootlets as show forthand enhance the separate beauty of each inch of outline of roundedankle, arched instep, and slender length of foot, shall lend their help.And if envious Time have something done to blur the bloom upon thecheek, or blot the clear transparent purity of skin,--sunt certapiacula,--there are not wanting means for helping a mortal Diva to someof the prerogatives of immortality in these respects.
And thus equipped, everything is ready, Quinto mio; we turn our backs onhaughty Milan, and nova regna petentes cras ingens iterabimus aequor,that is to say, the wide plains of Lombardy.
So Bianca and her faithful Quinto journeyed forth on that interminablylong flat monotonous Emilian road, with no accompanying sound of musicon their departure, but with the much-improved prospects, which havebeen described, on their arrival.
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