something, people murmured, if one were to judge by his shorter compositions. And Tonio, his pupil, was so remarkable to look at, so perfect in every feature, even if he did always, without exception, politely refuse to sing.
This was public life.
At home, it was relentless work for Guido, who drove Tonio through more rigorous practice than he’d ever endured at the conservatorio, particularly with high rapid glissandos, which were Bettichino’s stock in trade. After a strong two hours of morning exercises he now pushed Tonio towards notes and passages Tonio could execute only when the voice was thoroughly warm. Tonio didn’t feel safe in these realms, but practice would give him the security, and though he might never use these high notes, he must be ready for Bettichino, Guido reminded him again and again.
“But the man’s almost forty, can he sing this?” Tonio stared at a new set of exercises two octaves above middle C.
“If he can,” Guido said, “then you must.” And giving Tonio another aria, one which might not survive the day to appear in the finished opera, Guido said: “Now, you’re not in this room with me. You’re on the stage and there are thousands listening to you. You cannot make a mistake.”
Tonio was secretly ecstatic over this new music. Never in his life at Naples had he dared utter critical judgments of Guido, but Tonio knew his own taste had been educated before he had ever left home.
It was not only Venetian music he’d known; he had heard a great deal of Neapolitan music performed in the north.
And he realized that Guido, now freed of the dreary regimen of the conservatorio and the constant demands of his old students, was astonishing even himself. He was refining his performance, as well as his compositions, and delighting in all the attention he received.
After the day’s lessons were over, he and Tonio were completely free. And if Tonio did not want to accompany him to the various parties and concerts he attended, Guido did not press.
Tonio told himself he was happy to see all this. But he was not. Guido’s independence confused him. Guido took to wearing finer clothes than he had in Naples, thanks to the Contessa’s generosity, and he almost always wore a wig. The white frame for the face worked its civilizing and formalizing miracle, and those odd features—the immense and challenging eyes, the flat and brutal nose, and those lips spread so generously in a sensuous smile—made Guido a magnet even in a crowded room. And the sight of a woman on Guido’s arm, her breasts often pressed right against his sleeve, made quiet fury erupt in Tonio which he could only turn on himself.
It was all changing.
There is nothing you can do about it, and you are as spoiled and vain as anyone ever accused you of being, Tonio thought, if you begrudge him this.
Yet he was glad to leave these social gatherings at times. He couldn’t sing. The constant conversation wore him out. And with a bitterness, he reflected that Guido had “given” him to the Cardinal; he wanted still to be angry with Guido. Sometimes he wanted still to believe it was all Guido’s fault.
But by the time he reached the gates of the Cardinal Calvino’s house, he’d forgotten this.
He had but one thought in his mind and that was to be in the Cardinal’s bed.
It commenced early on those evenings when the Cardinal did not have guests. Paolo was sound asleep, Tonio always saw to that. And then he slipped into the Cardinal’s rooms without so much as a knock on the door or an exchange of words.
The Cardinal was in a fever of waiting, and his first act was always to remove Tonio’s clothes. It was his wish that Tonio be like a child in his hands, and he fought buttons and lace and hooks, even when they maddened him, without Tonio’s aid.
Once it had been told to him that Tonio was now and then going about in women’s clothes, far from being shocked, he wanted to see them, and frequently had the violet dress with the cream ribbons brought in so that Tonio might be put into it by him, and then stripped of it, as he chose.
It seemed at times it was Tonio’s skin he craved more than anything else. Pushing the fabric back, he would taste it with his tongue as well as his lips.
Tonio was as pliant in his arms as Domenico had ever been in