voice he could not grieve for that battered innocence.
So there lived in Tonio a part of himself that wanted vengeance?
Well, how could there not!
Yes, the old terror visited him. But it had always been there. At one time, it was the fear that bitterness would destroy Tonio; so now it was that vengeance would accomplish this. It was all one and the same. It was a knowledge finally that Guido carried within him, like the awareness of his mortality, and it made him feel as helpless as that; it made him feel silent and cold.
Never had he been able to make Tonio speak of it. On those dreadful days when letters came from the Veneto, true, it was that other twin who read them, destroyed them, and went about the world as if numbed by some poisoned draft.
But it was a radiant and eager Tonio who spoke with him now about the coming opera, the theater, what they should take with them from Naples, what they should leave behind? How many people could the Teatro Argentina hold?
“I know what this means to you,” he had once said to Guido. “No, no, I’m not speaking of myself now, nor you as my teacher, I’m speaking of Guido, the composer. I know what it means.”
“Then don’t talk about it.” Guido had smiled. “Or you’ll worry both of us.” They had talked softly, excitedly, now and then laughing, as they packed up the music, the books, and that great quantity of goods and paste and lace, the king’s ransom that was Tonio’s clothes.
“Feed the one twin,” the Maestro had said to him.
Yes, he would do that, because that was the only thing he could do, the only thing he had ever done; teach, guide, love, and praise this incomparably talented and beautiful singer, his lover, Tonio, who wanted now all the success that Guido had once wanted when years and years ago Guido had dreamed of his debut in Rome.
But why was it that all the way to Rome, Guido had been obsessed with that old tragedy, the loss of his voice? Never one to dwell on the past, any more than on complicated images, he was always overwhelmed by it at those rare moments when it overtook him, and he found his memories unsoftened by time.
Ah, maybe when all was said and done, it was only that he could not think of his parting from Maestro Cavalla and the school where he had lived since he was six years old.
And his mind sought this old pain to protect him from the leave-taking. But he did not really believe this. He did not know.
Pain and loss continued to weigh on his mind, intermingled with his recollection of the Maestro’s words regarding Tonio, “Let him see what the world offers him, let him have all the pleasures that he desires.”
What was it finally that Guido was feeling? The strong sense of losing something utterly precious, of something like his voice being taken away? Tonio would never leave him now for that terrible pilgrimage to Venice, if in fact Tonio ever truly meant to make that pilgrimage at all.
Yet the feeling persisted, the foreboding, the dread.
Even now, as he sat quietly in his room in the Cardinal’s palazzo, Guido was aware of it And it was punctuated with repeated flashes of the Cardinal Calvino’s face when he set eyes on Tonio. Such innocence that man had evinced! Surely he was the saint everyone said he was, otherwise he would have disguised his immediate fascination and never made such a foolish little joke.
The Cardinal had gone out after greeting his musicians.
Guido had watched the extraordinary procession leaving the gates. Five carriages made up the Cardinal’s retinue, with exquisitely liveried drivers and footmen; and not five paces from the house, the Cardinal had flung to the crowd the first handful of gold coins.
Tonio came in. He’d been to the tailor’s already with Paolo to outfit him as though he were destined to inherit a local throne. He had bought him a finely worked sword, a dozen or so books, and a violin because this was Paolo’s favorite instrument, and Guido insisted he be proficient on an instrument just in case….
Thoughts of loss; gloom. Why was Guido worrying about this? Just in case! No tragedy would visit Paolo; no tragedy would visit any of them.
Yet Guido felt heavy and weary in this vast room. Saints in a gilded frame did nothing to comfort him. Saint Catherine amid a