and serious about her. Freshly widowed, she was a butterfly struggling from the cocoon.
But she seemed alien in her fragility, something exquisitely exotic. He lifted his eyes to her again because he couldn’t stop it, and without ever looking at Guido, he sensed in him a slight change.
“But to answer you seriously, Signore Treschi,” she said in that same simple manner, “I’ve let a studio in the Piazza di Spagna. I’m going to live there. Guido was kind enough to sit for me so I could make up my mind about the light.”
“Yes, we had to move from place to place every five minutes or so,” Guido said, feigning complaint, “and to pin dozens of pictures to the walls. But it’s a fine studio, actually. And I can walk there from the palazzo and watch Christina paint when I’m tired and cross.”
“Oh, you must do that,” she said with obvious delight. “You must come all the time. And you must come, too, Signore Treschi.”
“And my dear,” Guido said, “I don’t mean to rush you, but if we’re to get your maids moved in, and the trunks brought up, we should leave now, or we’ll be stumbling about in the dark.”
“Yes, you’re right,” she said. “But will you come tomorrow, Signore Treschi?”
For a moment Tonio said nothing. Then he heard himself make a faint sound very much like the word “yes.” But quickly he stammered: “I can’t. I can’t I mean, Signora, I thank you, but I have to practice, we have less than a month before opening night.”
“I understand,” she said softly. And offering him that radiant smile again, over her shoulder, she excused herself and left the room.
Tonio turned at once to the door and he had reached the garden walk before Guido caught his arm.
“I’d say you were very rude if I couldn’t see the reason for it,” Guido said seriously.
“And what’s the reason!” Tonio demanded between clenched teeth.
Guido seemed on the verge of anger. But then he pressed his lips together and his eyes puckered as if he were about to smile.
“You mean you don’t know yourself?”
10
FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS, Tonio practiced from early morning until late at night. Twice he started to leave the palazzo, only to abruptly change his mind. Guido had finished all his arias; Tonio must now work out his ornaments to perfection, preparing himself to vary the arias in an infinite number of ways. No encore must sound exactly like what had gone before it; he must be ready for any expediency or change of mood in himself or his listeners. So he stayed home, even taking his meals at the keyboard, and working until he fell into bed.
The servants meantime were gathering at the doors of his room to listen to him; he often moved Paolo to tears. Even Guido, who usually left him alone in the afternoons to visit Christina Grimaldi in her new studio, stayed behind to hear just a few more bars.
“When I hear you sing, when I stand in the very presence of your voice”—Guido sighed—“I’m not afraid of the devil in hell.”
Tonio wasn’t grateful for this comment. It reminded him that Guido was truly afraid.
Once in the very middle of an aria, Tonio stopped and began to laugh.
“What’s the matter?” Paolo demanded.
Tonio could only shake his head. “Everyone is going to be there,” he whispered. He shut his eyes for a moment and then, shuddering almost dramatically, laughed again.
“Don’t talk about it, Tonio,” Paolo said desperately, biting his lip. He was pleading with Tonio for reassurance, and then the tears sprang to his eyes.
“Rather like a public execution,” Tonio said, catching his breath, “if it goes wrong.” He dissolved into silent laughter. “I’m sorry, Paolo, I can’t help it,” he said. He tried to be serious, but he could not. “Everyone, absolutely everyone, will be there.”
He folded his arms above the keyboard and shook with inaudible laughter. Now he understood the meaning of one’s first appearance: it was a grand invitation to risk the most dreadful public failure of one’s entire existence.
He stopped laughing only when he looked again at Paolo’s stricken face. “Come on,” he said gently, opening the score of a duet, “don’t pay any attention to me.”
* * *
By dusk on the fourth day, however, everything sounded like noise. He couldn’t work anymore. And he understood the virtue of this practice: he had not had to think; he had not had to remember anything; he had not had to ponder, plan, or