to his lean face, and he was talking pleasantly with those who accompanied him, pausing once, his hand on the marble railing, to catch his breath with a murmured jest.
He had the air of a monarch even in this little pause. And for all the richness of his crimson watered silk and silver jewelry, and the dignity of his carriage, there was that natural gaiety to his face.
Tonio stepped forward without any real purpose; perhaps only to see the man as he continued up the steps.
And when the Cardinal stopped again, catching sight of Tonio and looking at him for a definite interval, Tonio found himself bowing and backing away.
He did not know why he had let himself be seen. He stood alone in a shadowy corridor, the sun blazing in a high window at the far end of it, feeling suddenly ashamed.
Yet he was savoring the Cardinal’s faint smile and the manner in which the Cardinal had let his eyes linger on Tonio before giving him such an affectionate nod.
Tonio’s heart became a tiny hammer. “Go out into the city,” he whispered to himself.
3
IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, Guido resolved not to mention the matter of a female role for Tonio again. But he was more than ever convinced it was a necessity as he went about his work.
He visited the Teatro Argentina, talked with Ruggerio about the other singers he had set out to hire, satisfied himself that the machinery was in working order for any scenes he might write, and made some final arrangements for his percentage of the sale of the printed score.
Meantime Tonio was buying little Paolo every article of clothing a boy could possibly wear, from gold-threaded waistcoats to capes for summer and winter—though it was summer—handkerchiefs by the dozens, shirts trimmed with Tonio’s favorite Venetian lace, morocco slippers.
It was provoking, but Guido didn’t have time to reprimand, and Tonio was an excellent teacher, guiding Paolo through his vocalises as well as his Latin.
Paolo’s bushy brown hair was now tamed into a civilized shape; he was dressed all the time to go out, and they went off to visit the museums by torchlight in the evenings, Paolo terrified by the Laocoon for the very reasons it probably terrified everyone: that the man and his two sons, caught by the serpents, must all perish at the same time.
Tonio was also teaching Paolo a gentleman’s manners.
Every morning the three of them breakfasted together before one of the high windows, its garnet-colored draperies fastened back, and Guido had to admit he rather liked listening to the two of them who made no demand on him to join in; he liked people talking around him as long as he did not have to speak.
Guido had enough talking to do in the evenings. He was received everywhere, thanks to the Contessa, who wrote to him regularly, and everywhere he asked questions about the local taste and, pretending ignorance, had people describe to him all the recent operas in simple detail.
Making his way through immense ballrooms, up and down the steps of cardinals’ palaces and lodgings of foreign dilettanti, he sensed a massive society here, infinitely more sure of itself and more critical than he had known in any other place.
And why should it not be so? This was Rome, this was the magnet of Europe. All came here sooner or later to be elevated, humbled, absorbed, conceivably annihilated, or repulsed and driven away.
Whole communities of expatriates lived in this place. And though it had produced no recent outpouring of composers as Naples had done, or Venice in the past, this was where reputations were made or broken. Fine singers who had won laurels in the north and south might be destroyed in Rome, famous composers driven right out of the theater.
The south seemed soft to these people. If its beauty intoxicated them when they went there, it was not enough to keep them from returning to Rome. And they ridiculed the Venetians, saying it was all barcarola from there, that is, the kind of music one expects from the gondoliers on the water, and they felt no compassion for those whom in the past they had ruined.
Sometimes it angered Guido, this strident snobbery, especially since Naples supplied the world with her talent. And Vivaldi, the Venetian, was as fine as any composer in Europe. But he held his peace. He was here to learn.
And he was fascinated.
By day he haunted the coffeehouses, drank up the life of the thriving