him, he was roughly stroking its little petals, daring it to open.
“Well, you see you are tempted by others all the time to reveal who you are—”
“Guido, Sarri’s version of it opened the San Carlos. We saw it together,” Tonio said softly.
“Yes, but you didn’t pay that much attention to the libretto, did you? And besides I’m changing it considerably. And you must blot that out of your mind. I know what the Romans want. I’ve seen it all. They want absolute originality with only the most cautious invention. They want a feeling of solidity and richness, and of everything being consummately performed.”
It was defiance, that’s what it was, Tonio was thinking, being sealed into those garments, knowing what others couldn’t possibly know, watching them play the fool as they had shot him their discreet glances, sometimes their open invitations. What was the turning point, he wondered? When had he become the perpetrator of some vile impersonation rather than the victim of it? When had the old feeling of vulnerability melted into the sense of power? He could not say.
It was well after dinner that Guido roused himself from his armchair at the window to receive a letter that had been delivered to the gates.
Paolo had been sent to bed; Tonio had been drowsing, a glass of wine in his hand.
“What is it?” he asked as Guido sat down heavily, his expression unreadable before he crumpled the note and threw it away.
“Ruggerio has hired the other two castrati who’ll appear with you,” Guido said. He rose and with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his satin robe seemed in the act of mapping out his thoughts. He looked at Tonio. “It could be…worse.”
“Well, who are they?” Tonio asked.
“One is Rubino, an old singer, very elegant and perhaps too antique in his style. But the Romans have liked him in the past. There’s absolutely nothing to fear from Rubino; but we must pray he isn’t losing his voice.” He hesitated, so absorbed it was as if he’d forgotten Tonio was there.
“And the other?” Tonio coaxed.
“Bettichino,” Guido said.
“Bettichino!” Tonio whispered. Everyone knew of him. “Bettichino…on the same stage.”
“Remember!” Guido said sharply. “I told you it could be worse.” But he seemed to lose his conviction immediately. He walked a few paces, made a sharp turn. “He is cold,” he said. “He is imperious, he conducts himself as if he were royalty when he came up from nothing, like the rest of us…well…like some of us.” He threw a humorous glance at Tonio. “And he invariably has the orchestra tune itself from his voice. He’s been known to give instructions to those singers he thought needed it….”
“But he is a fine singer, a great singer,” Tonio said. “This is marvelous for the opera and you know it….” Guido was staring at him as if he did not quite know what to say. Then he murmured, “He has a very great following in Rome.”
“Have you no faith in me?” Tonio smiled.
“All my faith is in you,” Guido murmured. “But there will be two camps, his camp and your camp.”
“And so I must astonish everyone,” Tonio said with a playful lift of the head. “No’
Guido straightened his shoulders. And staring forward he went directly through the room and to his desk.
Tonio unwound himself slowly from the chair. Stepping quietly, he let himself into the cluttered little chamber which was his dressing room and settled there before a table of pots and jars, staring at the violet dress.
The cabinets bulged on either side of him with frock coats and capes; a dozen swords glimmered in the open armoire; and the window which might have been golden a moment ago was now a pale blue.
The dress lay as he’d left it, over an armchair, its underskirts mussed, its placket of cream-colored ruffles open all of a piece, as if it had been slashed along one side to reveal a yawning blackness within the rigid shape of the bodice.
He leaned on his elbow, his hand moving out just to touch the surface of the silk, and it seemed he was experiencing the feel of light itself because the dress gleamed in the dark.
He could imagine it covering him again, he could feel that unfamiliar nakedness above the ruffles and the heavy sway of those skirts. At the core of each new humiliation there was this sense of illimitable power, this exhilarating strength. What had Guido said to him, that he was free and that men and women