The opening night of the opera season is an event at Venice, as in every capital in Italy. The _Fenice_ was crowded.

The five hours of the night that are spent at the theatre fill so important a place in Italian life that it is well to give an account of the customs that have risen from this manner of spending time.

The boxes in Italy are unlike those of any other country, inasmuch as that elsewhere the women go to be seen, and that Italian ladies do not care to make a show of themselves. Each box is long and narrow, sloping at an angle to the front and to the pa.s.sage behind. On each side is a sofa, and at the end stand two armchairs, one for the mistress of the box, and the other for a lady friend when she brings one, which she rarely does. Each lady is in fact too much engaged in her own box to call on others, or to wish to see them; also no one cares to introduce a rival. An Italian woman almost always reigns alone in her box; the mothers are not the slaves of their daughters, the daughters have no mother on their hands; thus there are no children, no relations to watch and censure and bore, or cut into a conversation.

In front every box is draped in the same way, with the same silk: from the cornice hang curtains, also all to match; and these remain drawn when the family to whom the box belongs is in mourning. With very few exceptions, and those only at Milan, there is no light inside the box; they are illuminated only from the stage, and from a not very brilliant hanging l.u.s.tre which, in spite of protests, has been introduced into the house in some towns; still, screened by the curtains, they are never very light, and their arrangement leaves the back of the box so dark that it is very difficult to see what is going on.

The boxes, large enough to accommodate eight or ten persons, are decorated with handsome silks, the ceilings are painted and ornamented in light and pleasing colors; the woodwork is gilt. Ices and sorbets are served there, and sweetmeats; for only the plebeian cla.s.ses ever have a serious meal. Each box is freehold property, and of considerable value; some are estimated at as much as thirty thousand lire; the Litta family at Milan own three adjoining. These facts sufficiently indicate the importance attributed to this incident of fashionable life.

Conversation reigns supreme in this little apartment, which Stendhal, one of the most ingenious of modern writers, and a keen student of Italian manners, has called a boudoir with a window opening on to a pit. The music and the spectacle are in fact purely accessory; the real interest of the evening is in the social meeting there, the all-important trivialities of love that are discussed, the a.s.signations held, the anecdotes and gossip that creep in. The theatre is an inexpensive meeting-place for a whole society which is content and amused with studying itself.

The men who are admitted take their seats on one of the sofas, in the order of their arrival. The first comer naturally is next to the mistress of the box, but when both seats are full, if another visitor comes in, the one who has sat longest rises, takes his leave and departs. All move up one place, and so each in turn is next the sovereign.

This futile gossip, or serious colloquy, these elegant trivialities of Italian life, inevitably imply some general intimacy. The lady may be in full dress or not, as she pleases. She is so completely at home that a stranger who has been received in her box may call on her next day at her residence. The foreign visitor cannot at first understand this life of idle wit, this _dolce far niente_ on a background of music. Only long custom and keen observation can ever reveal to a foreigner the meaning of Italian life, which is like the free sky of the south, and where a rich man will not endure a cloud. A man of rank cares little about the management of his fortune; he leaves the details to his stewards (ragionati), who rob and ruin him. He has no instinct for politics, and they would presently bore him; he lives exclusively for pa.s.sion, which fills up all his time; hence the necessity felt by the lady and her lover for being constantly together; for the great feature of such a life is the lover, who for five hours is kept under the eye of a woman who has had him at her feet all day. Thus Italian habits allow of perpetual satisfaction, and necessitate a constant study of the means fitted to insure it, though hidden under apparent light-heartedness.

It is a beautiful life, but a reckless one, and in no country in the world are men so often found worn out.

The d.u.c.h.ess' box was on the pit tier--_pepiano_, as it is called in Venice; she always sat where the light from the stage fell on her face, so that her handsome head, softly illuminated, stood out against the dark background. The Florentine attracted every gaze by her broad, high brow, as white as snow, crowned with plaits of black hair that gave her a really royal look; by the refinement of her features, resembling the n.o.ble features of Andrea del Sarto's heads; by the outline of her face, the setting of her eyes; and by those velvet eyes themselves, which spoke of the rapture of a woman dreaming of happiness, still pure though loving, at once attractive and dignified.

Instead of _Mose_, in which la Tinti was to have appeared with Genovese, _Il Barbiere_ was given, and the tenor was to sing without the celebrated prima donna. The manager announced that he had been obliged to change the opera in consequence of la Tinti's being ill; and the Duke was not to be seen in the theatre.

Was this a clever trick on the part of the management, to secure two full houses by bringing out Genovese and Tinti separately, or was Clarina's indisposition genuine? While this was open to discussion by others, Emilio might be better informed; and though the announcement caused him some remorse, as he remembered the singer's beauty and vehemence, her absence and the Duke's put both the Prince and the d.u.c.h.ess very much at their ease.

And Genovese sang in such a way as to drive out all memories of a night of illicit love, and to prolong the heavenly joys of this blissful day.

Happy to be alone to receive the applause of the house, the tenor did his best with the powers which have since achieved European fame.

Genovese, then but three-and-twenty, born at Bergamo, a pupil of Veluti's and devoted to his art, a fine man, good-looking, clever in apprehending the spirit of a part, was already developing into the great artist destined to win fame and fortune. He had a wild success,--a phrase which is literally exact only in Italy, where the applause of the house is absolutely frenzied when a singer procures it enjoyment.

Some of the Prince's friends came to congratulate him on coming into his t.i.tle, and to discuss the news. Only last evening la Tinti, taken by the Duke to the Vulpatos', had sung there, apparently in health as sound as her voice was fine; hence her sudden disposition gave rise to much comment. It was rumored at the Cafe Florian that Genovese was desperately in love with Clarina; that she was only anxious to avoid his declarations, and that the manager had tried in vain to induce her to appear with him. The Austrian General, on the other hand, a.s.serted that it was the Duke who was ill, that the prima donna was nursing him, and that Genovese had been commanded to make amends to the public.

The d.u.c.h.ess owed this visit from the Austrian General to the fact that a French physician had come to Venice whom the General wished to introduce to her. The Prince, seeing Vendramin wandering about the _parterre_, went out for a few minutes of confidential talk with his friend, whom he had not seen for three months; and as they walked round the gangway which divides the seats in the pit from the lowest tier of boxes, he had an opportunity of observing Ma.s.similla's reception of the foreigner.

"Who is that Frenchman?" asked the Prince.

"A physician sent for by Cataneo, who wants to know how long he is likely to live," said Vendramin. "The Frenchman is waiting for Malfatti, with whom he is to hold a consultation."

Like every Italian woman who is in love, the d.u.c.h.ess kept her eyes fixed on Emilio; for in that land a woman is so wholly wrapped up in her lover that it is difficult to detect an expressive glance directed at anybody else.

"Caro," said the Prince to his friend, "remember I slept at your house last night."

"Have you triumphed?" said Vendramin, putting his arm round Emilio's waist.

"No; but I hope I may some day be happy with Ma.s.similla."

"Well," replied Marco, "then you will be the most envied man on earth.

The d.u.c.h.ess is the most perfect woman in Italy. To me, seeing things as I do through the dazzling medium of opium, she seems the very highest expression of art; for nature, without knowing it, has made her a Raphael picture. Your pa.s.sion gives no umbrage to Cataneo, who has handed over to me a thousand crowns, which I am to give to you."

"Well," added Emilio, "whatever you may hear said, I sleep every night at your house. Come, for every minute spent away from her, when I might be with her, is torment."

Emilio took his seat at the back of the box and remained there in silence, listening to the d.u.c.h.ess, enchanted by her wit and beauty. It was for him, and not out of vanity, that Ma.s.similla lavished the charms of her conversation bright with Italian wit, in which sarcasm lashed things but not persons, laughter attacked nothing that was not laughable, mere trifles were seasoned with Attic salt.

Anywhere else she might have been tiresome. The Italians, an eminently intelligent race, have no fancy for displaying their talents where they are not in demand; their chat is perfectly simple and effortless, it never makes play, as in France, under the lead of a fencing master, each one flourishing his foil, or, if he has nothing to say, sitting humiliated.

Conversation sparkles with a delicate and subtle satire that plays gracefully with familiar facts; and instead of a compromising epigram an Italian has a glance or a smile of unutterable meaning. They think--and they are right--that to be expected to understand ideas when they only seek enjoyment, is a bore.

Indeed, la Vulpato had said to Ma.s.similla:

"If you loved him you would not talk so well."

Emilio took no part in the conversation; he listened and gazed. This reserve might have led foreigners to suppose that the Prince was a man of no intelligence,--their impression very commonly of an Italian in love,--whereas he was simply a lover up to his ears in rapture.

Vendramin sat down by Emilio, opposite the Frenchman, who, as the stranger, occupied the corner facing the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Is that gentleman drunk?" said the physician in an undertone to Ma.s.similla, after looking at Vendramin.

"Yes," replied she, simply.

In that land of pa.s.sion, each pa.s.sion bears its excuse in itself, and gracious indulgence is shown to every form of error. The d.u.c.h.ess sighed deeply, and an expression of suppressed pain pa.s.sed over her features.

"You will see strange things in our country, monsieur," she went on.

"Vendramin lives on opium, as this one lives on love, and that one buries himself in learning; most young men have a pa.s.sion for a dancer, as older men are miserly. We all create some happiness or some madness for ourselves."

"Because you all want to divert your minds from some fixed idea, for which a revolution would be a radical cure," replied the physician. "The Genoese regrets his republic, the Milanese pines for his independence, the Piemontese longs for a const.i.tutional government, the Romagna cries for liberty--"

"Of which it knows nothing," interrupted the d.u.c.h.ess. "Alas! there are men in Italy so stupid as to long for your idiotic Charter, which destroys the influence of woman. Most of my fellow-countrywomen must need read your French books--useless rhodomontade--"

"Useless!" cried the Frenchman.

"Why, monsieur," the d.u.c.h.ess went on, "what can you find in a book that is better than what we have in our hearts? Italy is mad."

"I cannot see that a people is mad because it wishes to be its own master," said the physician.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, eagerly, "does not that mean paying with a great deal of bloodshed for the right of quarreling, as you do, over crazy ideas?"

"Then you approve of despotism?" said the physician.

"Why should I not approve of a system of government which, by depriving us of books and odious politics, leaves men entirely to us?"

"I had thought that the Italians were more patriotic," said the Frenchman.

Ma.s.similla laughed so slyly that her interlocutor could not distinguish mockery from serious meaning, nor her real opinion from ironical criticism.

"Then you are not a liberal?" said he.

"Heaven preserve me!" said she. "I can imagine nothing in worse taste than such opinions in a woman. Could you love a woman whose heart was occupied by all mankind?"

"Those who love are naturally aristocrats," the Austrian General observed, with a smile.