wonderful little victories, though Guido was colder than ever, and taking Tonio out more and more often in the evenings in spite of it.
They attended comic operas which Tonio loved more than he thought he would (since they so seldom used castrati) and another performance of the same tragic opera at the San Bartolommeo.
Afterwards, however, Tonio would not go to any balls or suppers with Guido. Guido was puzzled by this. He seemed slightly disappointed. Then he remarked coldly that such entertainments were good for Tonio. But Tonio said he was tired, or that he would rather be at his practice in the morning. And Guido shrugged, accepting this.
Tonio was cold all over and sweating when these little discussions happened. He had only to think of those women around him and he felt a suffocating fear. And then he would think, without meaning to, of Bettina in the gondola; it was as if he could feel the gentle sway of the boat, smell the water around him, breathe the air that was Venetian air, and again there came the sensation of that warmth in entering her, the wetness of the little hairy cleft between her legs, and that incredible flesh on the inside of her thighs where he had sometimes nuzzled his head before taking her.
He would grow still at such times, silent, looking out the window of the carriage as if in the most peaceful thought.
And coming back one night from the San Bartolommeo, it occurred to him that he would not be entirely safe until he was inside the conservatorio. An odd thought when Lorenzo, offering his sly smile whenever their paths crossed, was obviously waiting there for the chance to harm him.
Yet the early part of these evenings out meant everything to Tonio. He was loving the theaters of Naples, and all the nuances of the performances were alive for him. There were times when after several glasses of wine he felt talkative, and he and Guido were constantly interrupting each other in their impetuosity.
And at other times, a baffling apprehension of the strangeness of it all would descend on Tonio. He and Guido behaved for the most part as if they were enemies of each other. Tonio was often as haughty as Guido was surly.
And one night when they were riding along the curve of the sea, and the air was salty and warm, and Guido had bought a bottle of wine for them, and the carriage was open, and the stars seemed especially low and brilliant in the clean sky, Tonio found himself quietly agonizing over the coldness between them. He stared at Guido’s profile against the white foam that seemed to lash the black water and thought, This is the gruff tyrant who makes my days so miserable when with just a few words of praise he could make everything easier. And yet here he sits a gentleman tonight in his handsome clothes talking to me as if we were merely good friends in a drawing room. He is two people. Tonio sighed.
Guido seemed to have no awareness of Tonio’s thoughts. He was describing to him in a low voice a talented composer named Pergolesi who was dying of consumption and had been so ridiculed in Rome when his opera premiered there that he had never recovered from it. “The Roman audiences are the worst,” Guido sighed. And then he looked off to sea as if distracted. He added that Pergolesi had entered the Gesù Cristo Conservatorio years ago and was about Guido’s own age. If Guido had given his all to composing he might have to worry now about the Roman audiences.
“And why didn’t you give your all to composing?” Tonio asked.
“I was a singer,” Guido murmured. And then Tonio remembered that flaming speech which Maestro Cavalla had made to him the night he’d gone up to the mountain. He was suddenly embarrassed to have forgotten it. He thought so much about himself, his pain, his recovery, his small triumphs that he had thought almost nothing about this man beside him, really, and then he thought, And so this is why he despises me?
“The music you’ve often given me…it’s your own, isn’t it?” Tonio asked. “It’s marvelous!”
“Don’t purport to tell me what is good or bad in what I do!” Guido suddenly became incensed. “I will tell you when my music is good just as I will tell you when your singing is good!”