CHAPTER XVII

ANZOLETO found Corilla alone in a charming boudoir, reclining on a couch in a becoming undress; but the alteration in her features by daylight, led him to suspect that her security with regard to Consuelo was not so great as her faithful partisans asserted. Nevertheless she received him with an easy air, and tapping him playfully on the cheek, while she made a sign to her servant to withdraw, exclaimed—"Ah, wicked one, is it you?—are you come with your tales, or would you make me believe you are no dealer in flourishes, nor the most intriguing of all the postulants for fame? You were somewhat conceited, my handsome friend, if you supposed that I should be disheartened by your sudden flight after so many tender declarations; and still more conceited was it to suppose that you were wanted, for in four-and-twenty hours I had forgotten that such a person existed."

"Four and-twenty hours!—that is a long time," replied Anzoleto, kissing the plump and rounded arm of Corilla. "Ah! if I believed that, I should be proud indeed; but I know that if I was so far deceived as to believe you when you said——"

"What I said, I advise you to forget also. Had you called you would have found my door shut against you. What assurance to come today!"

"Is it not good taste to leave those who are in favor, and to lay one's heart and devotion at the feet of her who——"

"Well, finish—to her who is in disgrace. It is most generous and humane on your part, most illustrious friend!" And Corilla fell back upon the satin pillow with a burst of shrill and forced laughter.

Although the disgraced prima donna was no longer in her early freshness—although the mid-day sun was not much in her favor, and although vexation had somewhat taken from the effect of her full-formed features—Anzoleto, who had never been on terms of intimacy with a woman so brilliant and so renowned, felt himself moved in regions of the soul to which Consuela had never descended, and whence he had voluntarily banished her pure image. He therefore palliated the raillery of Corilla by a profession of love which he had only intended to feign, but which he now actually began to experience. I say love for want of a better word, for it were to profane the name to apply it to the attraction awakened by such women as Corilla. When she saw the young tenor really moved, she grew milder, and addressed him after a more amiable fashion. "I confess," said she, "you selected me for a whole evening, but I did not altogether esteem you. I know you are ambitious, and consequently false, and ready for every treason. I dare not trust to you. You pretended to be jealous on a certain night in my gondola, and took upon you the airs of a despot. That might have disenchanted me with the insipid gallantries of our patricians, but you deceived me, ungrateful one! you were engaged to another, and are going to marry—whom?—oh? I know very well—my rival, my enemy, the débutante, the new protegée of Zustiniani. Shame upon us two—upon us three—upon us all!" added she, growing animated in spite of herself, and withdrawing her hand from Anzoleto.

"Cruel creature!" he exclaimed, trying to regain her fair fingers, "you ought to understand what passed in my heart when I first saw you, and not busy yourself with what occupied me before that terrible moment. As to what happened since, can you not guess it, and is there any necessity to recur to the subject?"

"I am not to be put off with half words and reservations; do you love the zingarella, and are you about to marry her?"

"And if I loved her, how does it happen I did not marry her before?"

"Perhaps the count would have opposed it. Every one knows what he wants now. They even say that he has ground for impatience, and the little one still more so."

The color mounted to Anzoleto's face when he heard language of this sort applied to the being whom he venerated above all others.

"Ah, you are angry at my supposition," said Corilla; "it is well—that is what I wished to find out. You love her. When will the marriage take place?"

"For the love of Heaven, madam, let us speak of nobody except ourselves."

"Agreed," replied Corilla. "So, my former lover and your future spouse——"

Anzoleto was enraged; he rose to go away, but what was he to do? Should he enrage still more the woman whom he had come to pacify? He remained undecided, dreadfully humiliated, and unhappy at the part he had imposed on himself.

Corilla eagerly desired to win his affections, not because she loved him, but because she wished to be revenged on Consuelo, whom she had abused without being certain that her insinuations were well founded.

"You see," said she, arresting him on the threshold with a penetrating look, "that I have reason to doubt you; for at this moment you are deceiving some one—either her or myself."

"Neither one nor the other," replied he, endeavoring to justify himself in his own eyes. "I am not her lover, and I never was so. I am not in love with her, for I am not jealous of the count."

"Oh! indeed? You ate jealous even to the point of denying it, and you come here to cure yourself or distract your attention from a subject so unpleasant. Many thanks!"

"I am not jealous, I repeat; and to prove that it is not mortification which makes me speak, I tell you that the count is no more her lover than I am; that she is virtuous, child as she is, and that the only one guilty towards you is Count Zustiniani."

"So, so; then I may hiss the zingarella without afflicting you. You shall be in my box on the night of her début, and you shall hiss her. Your obedience shall be the price of my favor—take me at my word, or I draw back."

"Alas! madam, you wish to prevent me appearing myself, for you know I am to do so at the same time as Consuelo. If you hiss her, I shall fall a victim to your wrath, because I shall sing with her. And what have I done, wretch that I am, to displease you? Alas! I had a delicious but fatal dream. I thought for a whole evening that you took an interest in me, and that I should grow great under your protection. Now I am the object of your hatred and anger—I, who have so loved and respected you as to fly you! Very well, madam; satiate your enmity. Overthrow me—ruin me—close my career. So that you can here tell me, in secret, that I am not hateful to you, I shall accept the public marks of your anger."

"Serpent!" exclaimed Corilla, "where have you imbibed the poison which your tongue and your eyes distil? Much would I give to know, to comprehend you, for you are the most amiable of lovers and the most dangerous of enemies."

"I your enemy! how could I be so, even were I not subdued by your charms? Have you enemies then, divine Corilla? Can you have them in Venice, where you are known and where you rule over no divided empire? A love quarrel throws the count into despair; he would remove you, since thereby he would cease to suffer. He meets a little creature in his path who appears to display resources, and who only asks to be heard. Is this a crime on the part of a poor child, who only hears your name with terror, and who never utters it herself without respect? And you ascribe to this little one insolent pretensions which she does not entertain. The efforts of the count to recommend her to his friends, the kindness of these friends, who exaggerate her deserts, the bitterness of yours, who spread calumnies which serve but to annoy and vex you, while they should but calm your soul in picturing to you your glory unassailable and your rival all trembling—these are the prejudices which I discover in you, and at which I am so confounded that I hardly know how to assail them."

"You know but too well, with that flattering tongue of yours," said Corilla, looking at him with tenderness mixed with distrust; "I hear the honeyed words which reason bids me disclaim. I wager that this Consuelo is divinely beautiful, whatever may have been said to the contrary, and that she has merits, though opposed to mine, since the severe Porpora has proclaimed them."

"You know Porpora; you know all his crotchety ideas. An enemy of all originality in others, and of every innovation in the art of song, he declares a little pupil, who listens to his dotage, submissive to his pedantry, and who runs over the scale decently, to be preferable to all the wonders which the public adores. How long have you tormented yourself about this crazy old fool?"

"She afraid? I was told, on the contrary, that she was gifted with rare impudence."

"Alas, poor girl! they do wish to ruin her then. You shall hear her, noble Corilla; you will be moved by a generous pity, and you will encourage instead of hissing her as you said just now in jest."

"Either you deceive me, or my friends have greatly deceived me with regard to her."

"Your friends have allowed themselves to be deceived. In their indiscreet zeal they have been terrified at seeing a rival raised up against you—terrified by a child!—terrified for you! Ah! those persons cannot love you much, since they appreciate you so little. Oh! if I had the happiness to be your friend, I should know better what you are, and I should not do you the injustice to be affrighted by any rivalry, were it even that of a Faustina or a Molteni."

"Do not believe that I have been frightened. I am neither jealous nor malicious; the success of others having never injured mine, I have never troubled myself about them. But when I think that they endeavor to brave me and to make me suffer."

"Do you wish me to bring the little Consuelo to your feet? If she had dared, she would already have come to ask your advice and your assistance. But she is so timid a child! and then they had calumniated you to her. They said to her also that you were cruel, vindictive, and that you reckoned confidently on her fall."

"Did they say that? Then I understand why you are here."

"No, madam, you do not understand; for I did not believe it an instant—I never shall believe it. Oh no, madam! you do not understand why."

In speaking thus, Anzoleto made his black eyes sparkle, and bent his knee before Corilla with an expression of profound respect and love.

"She is without talent then?"

"Why, she has a passable voice, and sings decently at church, but she can know nothing of the theater; and besides, she is so paralyzed with fear, that it is much to be dreaded she will lose the few resources that Heaven has given her."

Corilla was destitute neither of acuteness nor ill-nature; but as happens to women excessively taken with themselves, vanity sealed her eyes and precipitated her into the clumsy trap.

She thought she had nothing to apprehend as regarded Anzoleto's sentiments for the débutante. When he justified himself, and swore by all the gods that he had never loved this young girl, save as a brother should love, he told the truth, and there was so much confidence in his manner that Corilla's jealousy was overcome. At length the great day approached, and the cabal was annihilated. Corilla, on her part, thenceforth went on in a different direction, fully persuaded that the timid and inexperienced Consuelo would not succeed, and that Anzoleto would owe her an infinite obligation for having contributed nothing to her downfall. Besides, he had the address to embroil her with her firmest champions, pretending to be jealous, and obliging her to dismiss them rather rudely.

While he thus labored in secret to blast the hopes of a woman whom he pretended to love, the cunning Venetian played another game with the count and Consuelo. He boasted to them of having disarmed this most formidable enemy by dexterous management, interested visits, and bold falsehoods. The count, frivolous and somewhat of a gossip, was extremely amused by the stories of his protegé. His self-love was flattered at the regret which Corilla was said to experience on account of their quarrel, and he urged on this young man, with the levity which one witnesses in affairs of love and gallantry, to the commission of cowardly perfidy. Consuelo was astonished and distressed. "You would do better," said she, "to exercise your voice and study your part. You think you have done much in propitiating the enemy, but a single false note, a movement badly expressed, would do more against you with the impartial public than the silence of the envious. It is of this public that you should think, and I see with pain that you are thinking nothing about it."

"Be calm, little Consuelo," said he; "your error is to believe a public at once impartial and enlightened. Those best acquainted with the matter are hardly ever in earnest, and those who are in earnest know so little about it, that it only requires boldness to dazzle and lead them away."