he began, “that you need this experience before you leave here. And the time for your debut is almost at hand.”
“But that’s not possible,” Tonio said. “I’m not ready—”
“Be quiet,” said the Maestro. “I can judge your progress far better than you can judge it. And you know I’m right about this. I’m also right that you should perform out of the conservatorio, but you refuse this too. Invitations come in every week for you to perform in private houses, yet you refuse. Tonio, don’t you realize this school has become a refuge for you?”
Tonio winced. “That’s not so,” he murmured with quiet anger, but he knew the Maestro was right.
“Tonio, when you first came here,” said the Maestro, “when you first resigned yourself to sing, I didn’t think you would endure. I thought the discipline would be much too harsh for you, and I steeled myself to see Guido disappointed again. But you surprised me. You became an aristocrat of this little place; you made it your Venice; you shone here as you might have there.
“But this isn’t the world, Tonio, any more than Venice is the world. And you are ready for the world now.”
After a long pause Tonio turned to meet the Maestro’s gaze. “May I confide to you a little secret?” he asked. The Maestro nodded.
“Never in my life have I known the happiness I’ve known here.”
The Maestro gave an affectionate and slightly sad smile.
“Does that surprise you?” Tonio asked.
“No,” the Maestro said. “Not when one has a voice such as your voice, it does not.” Then he bent across the desk. “That’s your power, that’s your strength. I promised you once that it would be if you let it. Now, it’s nothing more than the truth. And now I’m going to tell you something else. Guido is ready for the world, too. He’s ready to write your premiere opera for the Roman stage. He’s patient with you because he cannot bear to see you suffer. So he waits. But you are both of you ready, and for Guido the work and the waiting have gone on for a long, long time.”
Tonio didn’t answer. He was not thinking. Rather he was merely aware that by now, in the normal course of events, he would have been a man. He would have looked and sounded like that double in Venice, and he was wishing vaguely that he could remember better the timbre of that manly voice. His own speaking voice by habit was soft, low, but he made it that way; and he never, never forgot himself, even when he laughed.
“I am going to be even more ruthless,” said the Maestro. “There are others here ready to take the spotlight, ready to take your place.”
Tonio nodded. But the man went on.
“Do you think I don’t know what happened to you? From Guido year in and year out I’ve gotten only silence; from you, the same. But I know what happened to you, what you’ve endured….”
“You don’t know,” Tonio said sharply, “because it has never happened to you.”
“You’re wrong. True evil in this world is done by those with no imagination. I have imagination. I know what you lost.”
Tonio didn’t answer. He wouldn’t admit to this. It struck him as proud and vain, but all the rest the Maestro had said was very simply true.
“Give me a little time….” Tonio said finally, more to himself than to the Maestro. And the Maestro, satisfied that he had been understood, had left it at that.
So now this was the third anniversary of the day he’d come.
And in the midst of this celebratory feeling, this gentle euphoria, he knew more clearly than ever that the Maestro was right.
It was almost dark when he returned to the conservatorio. He had gone first to the Albergo Inghilterra near the sea and let a couple of rooms. It was his plan to take Guido there tonight, and before that he wanted to stop into a nearby church to hear Caffarelli sing. Caffarelli had been in Naples over a year now, singing often at the San Carlos, but it meant something to Tonio to hear him on this special day.
Finding Guido’s studio empty, he went into his room.
Guido was dressed already for the evening in a fine red velvet frock coat that Tonio had bought for him, and he was putting a jeweled ring on his left hand. His hair was neatly combed, the thick curls a glossy chocolate brown, and there was an unusual