CHAPTER XII

THE musical dissertation was continued until they reached the palace of Zustiniani, where they arrived toward midnight, to partake of coffee and sherbet. From the technicalities of art they had passed on to style, musical ideas, ancient and modern forms; from that to artists and their different modes of feeling and expressing themselves. Porpora spoke with admiration of his master Scarlatti, the first who had imparted a pathetic character to religious compositions; but there he stopped, and would not admit that sacred music should trespass upon profane, in tolerating ornaments, trills and roulades.

"Does your Highness," said Anzoleto, "find fault with these and other difficult additions, which have nevertheless constituted the glory and success of your illustrious pupil Farinelli?"

"I only disapprove of them in the church," replied the maestro; "I would have them in their proper place, which is the theater. I wish them of a pure, sober, genuine taste, and appropriate in their modulations, not only to the subject of which they treat, but to the person and situation that are represented, and the passion which is expressed. The nymphs and shepherds may warble like any birds; their cadences may be like the flowing fountain; but Medea or Dido can only sob and roar like a wounded lioness. The coquette, indeed, may load her silly cavatina with capricious and elaborate ornament. Corilla excels in this description of music; but once she attempts to express the deeper emotions, the passions of the human heart, she becomes inferior even to herself. In vain she struggles, in vain she swells her voice and bosom—a note misplaced, an absurd roulade, parodies in an instant the sublimity which she had hoped to reach. You have all heard Faustina Bordoni, now Madame Hasse: in situations appropriate to her brilliant qualities, she had no equal; but when Cuzzoni came, with her pure, deep feeling, to sing of pain, of prayer, or tenderness, the tears which she drew forth banished in an instant from your heart the recollection of Faustina. The solution of this is to be found in the fact that there is a showy and superficial cleverness, very different from lofty and creative genius. There is also that which amuses, which moves us, which astonishes, and which completely carries us away. I know very well that sudden and startling effects are now in fashion; but if I taught them to my pupils as useful exercises, I almost repent of it when I see the majority so abuse them—so sacrifice what is necessary to what is superflous—the lasting emotion of the audience to cries of surprise and the darts of a feverish and transitory pleasure."

No one attempted to combat conclusions so eternally true with regard to all the arts, and which will be always applied to their varied manifestations by lofty minds. Nevertheless, the count, who was curious to know how Consuelo would sing ordinary music, pretended to combat a little the severe notions of Porpora; but seeing that the modest girl, instead of refuting his heresies, ever turned her eyes to her old master as if to solicit his victorious replies, he determined to attack herself, and asked her "if she sang upon the stage with as much ability and purity as at church?"

"I do not think," she replied, with unfeigned humility, "that I should there experience the same inspirations or acquit myself nearly so well."

"This modest and sensible reply satisfies me," said the count; "and I feel assured that if you will condescend to study those brilliant difficulties of which we every day become more greedy, you will sufficiently inspire an ardent, curious, and somewhat spoiled public."

"Study!" replied Porpora, with a meaning smile.

"Study!" cried Anzoleto, with superb disdain.

"Yes, without doubt," replied Consuelo, with her accustomed sweetness. "Though I have sometimes labored in this direction, I do not think I should be able to rival the illustrious performers who have appeared in our time."

"You do not speak sincerely," exclaimed Anzoleto, with animation. "Eccelenza, she does not speak the truth. Ask her to try the most elaborate and difficult airs in the repertory of the theater, and you will see what she can do."

"If I did not think she were tired," said the count, whose eyes sparkled with impatience and curiosity. Consuelo turned hers artlessly to Porpora, as if to await his command.

"Why, as to that," said he, "such a trifle could not tire her; and as we are here a select few, we can listen to her talent in every description of music. Come, Signor Count, choose an air, and accompany it yourself on the harpsichord."

"The emotion which the sound of her voice would occasion me," replied Zustiniani, "would cause me to play falsely. Why not accompany her yourself, maestro?"

"I should wish to see her sing," continued Porpora; "for between us be it said I have never seen her sing. I wish to know how she demeans herself, and what she does with her mouth and with her eyes. Come, my child, arise; it is for me as well as for you that this trial is to be made."

"Let me accompany her, then," said Anzoleto, seating himself at the instrument.

"You will frighten me, O my master!" said Consuelo to Porpora.

"Fools alone are timid," replied the master. "Whoever is inspired with the love of art need fear nothing. If you tremble, it is because you are vain; if you lose your resources, it is because they are false; and if so, I shall be one of the first to say—'Consuelo is good for nought.'"

And without troubling himself as to what effect these tender encouragements might produce, the professor donned his spectacles, placed himself before his pupil, and began to beat the time on the harpsichord to give the true movement of the ritornella. They chose a brilliant, strange and difficult air from an opera buffa of Galuppi,—The Diavolessa,—in order to test her in a species of art the most opposite to that in which she had succeeded in the morning. The young girl enjoyed a facility so prodigious as to be able, almost without study and as if in sport, to overcome, with her pliable and powerful voice, all the difficulties of execution then known. Porpora had recommended and made her repeat such exercises from time to time, in order to see that she did not neglect them; but he was quite unaware of the ability of his wonderful pupil in this respect. As if to revenge herself for the bluntness which he had displayed, Consuelo was roguish enough to add to The Diavolessa a multitude of turns and ornaments until then esteemed impracticable, but which she improvised with as much unconcern and calmness as if she had studied them with care.

These embellishments were so skillful in their modulations, of a character so energetic, wild, and startling, and mingled in the midst of their most impetuous gaiety with accents so mournful, that a shudder of terror replaced the enthusiasm of the audience, and Porpora, rising suddenly, cried out with a loud voice—"You are the devil in person!"

Consuelo finished her air with a crescendo di forza which excited shouts of admiration, while she reseated herself upon her chair with a burst of laughter.

"Wicked girl!" said Porpora to her, "you have played me a trick which deserves hanging. You have mocked me. You have hidden from me half your studies and your powers. It is long since I could teach you any thing, and you have received my lessons from hypocrisy; perhaps to steal from me the secrets of composition and of teaching, in order to surpass me in every thing, and make me pass afterwards for an old pedant."

"Dear master," replied Consuelo, "I have done no more than imitate your roguery toward the Emperor Charles. Have you not often told me that adventure?—how his imperial majesty did not like trills, and had forbidden you to introduce a solitary one into your oratorio; and how, having scrupulously respected his commands even to the end of the work, you gave him a tasteful divertimento in the final fugue, commencing it by four ascending trills, repeated ad finitum afterward in the stretto by all the parts? You have this evening been pleading against the abuse of embellishments, and yet you ordered me to use them. I have made use of too many, in order to prove to you that I likewise can be extravagant, a fault of which I am quite willing to plead guilty."

"I tell you that you are Beelzebub in person," returned Porpora. "Now sing us something human, and sing as you understand it, for I see plainly that I can no longer be your master."

"You will always be my respected and well-beloved master," cried she, throwing herself upon his neck and pressing him to her heart; "it is to you that I owe my bread and my instruction for ten years. Oh, my master! they say that you have formed only ingrates; may God deprive me on the instant of my love and my voice, if I carry in my heart the poison of pride and ingratitude!'

Porpora turned pale, stammered some words, and imprinted a paternal kiss upon the brow of his pupil; but he left there a tear, and Consuelo, who did not dare to wipe it off, felt that cold and bitter tear of neglected old age and unhappy genius slowly dry upon her forehead. She felt deeply affected with a sort of religious terror, which threw a shade over all her gaiety, and extinguished all her fancy for the rest of the evening. An hour afterward, when they had lavished upon her all the usual phrases of admiration, surprise, and rapture, without being able to draw her from her melancholy, they asked for a specimen of her dramatic talent. She sang a grand air of Jomelli, from the opera of Didone Abandonata. Never had she felt in so great a degree the necessity of breathing forth her sadness; she was sublime in pathos, in simplicity, in grandeur, and her features and expression were even more beautiful than they had been at the church. Her complexion was flushed with a feverish glow; her eyes shot forth lurid lightnings; she was no longer a saint, she was even more—she was a woman consumed by love. The count, his friend Barberigo, Anzoleto, and I believe even the old Porpora himself, were almost out of their senses. Clorinda was suffocated with despair. Consuelo, to whom the count announced that on the morrow her engagement should be drawn up and signed, begged of him to promise her a second favor, and to engage his word to her after the manner of the ancient chevaliers, without knowing to what it referred. He did so, and the company separated, overpowered by that delicious emotion which is caused by great events and swayed at pleasure by great geniuses.