I

When, one day, toward two o’clock in the afternoon, Don Giovanni Ussorio was about to set his foot on the threshold of Violetta Kutufas’ house, Rosa Catana appeared at the head of the stairs and announced in a lowered voice, while she bent her head:

“Don GiovÀ, the Signora has gone.”

Don Giovanni, at this unexpected news, stood dumbfounded, and remained thus for a moment with his eyes bulging and his mouth wide open While gazing upward as if awaiting further explanations. Since Rosa stood silently at the top of the stairs, twisting an edge of her apron with her hands and dilly-dallying somewhat, he asked at length:

“But tell me why? But tell me why?” And he mounted several steps while he kept repeating with a slight stutter:

“But why? But why?”

“Don GiovÀ, what have I to tell you? Only that she has gone.”

“But why?”

“Don GiovÀ, I do not know, so there!”

And Rosa took several steps on the landing-place toward the door of the empty apartment. She was rather a thin woman, with reddish hair, and face liberally scattered with freckles. Her large, ash-coloured eyes had nevertheless a singular vitality. The excessive distance between her nose and mouth gave to the lower part of her face the appearance of a monkey.

Don Giovanni pushed open the partly closed door and passed through the first room, and then the third; he walked around the entire apartment with excited steps; he stopped at the little room, set aside for the bath. The silence almost terrified him; a heavy anxiety weighted down his heart.

“It can’t be true! It can’t be true!” he murmured, staring around confusedly.

The furniture of the room was in its accustomed place, but there was missing from the table under the round mirror, the crystal phials, the tortoise-shell combs, the boxes, the brushes, all of those small objects that assist at the preparation of feminine beauty. In a corner stood a species of large, zinc kettle shaped like a guitar; and within it sparkled water tinted a delicate pink from some essence. The water exhaled subtle perfume that blended in the air with the perfume of cyprus-powder. The exhalation held in it some inherent quality of sensuousness.

“Rosa! Rosa!” Don Giovanni cried, in a voice almost extinguished by the insurmountable anxiety that he felt surging through him.

The woman appeared.

“Tell me how it happened! To what place has she gone? And when did she go? And why?” begged Don Giovanni, making with his mouth a grimace both comic and childish, in order to restrain his grief and force back the tears.

He seized Rosa by both wrists, and thus incited her to speak, to reveal.

“I do not know, Signor,” she answered. “This morning she put her clothes in her portmanteau, sent for Leones’ carriage, and went away without a word. What can you do about it? She will return.”

“Return-n-n!” sobbed Don Giovanni, raising his eyes in which already the tears had started to overflow. “Has she told you when? Speak!” And this last cry was almost threatening and rabid.

“Eh?... to be sure she said to me, ‘Addio, Rosa. We will never see each other again...! But, after all ... who can tell! Everything is possible.’”

Don Giovanni sank dejectedly upon a chair at these words, and set himself to weeping with so much force of grief that the woman was almost touched by it.

“Now what are you doing, Don GiovÀ? Are there not other women in this world? Don GiovÀ, why do you worry about it...?”

Don Giovanni did not hear. He persisted in weeping like a child and hiding his face in Rosa Catana’s apron; his whole body was rent with the upheavals of his grief.

“No, no, no.... I want Violetta! I want Violetta!” he cried.

At that stupid childishness Rosa could not refrain from smiling. She gave assistance by stroking the bald head of Don Giovanni and murmuring words of consolation.

“I will find Violetta for you; I will find her.... So! be quiet! Do not weep any more, Don Giovannino. The people passing can hear. Don’t worry about it, now.”

Don Giovanni, little by little, under the friendly caress, curbed his tears and wiped his eyes on her apron.

“Oh! oh! what a thing to happen!” he exclaimed, after having remained for a moment with his glance fixed on the zinc kettle, where the water glittered now under a sunbeam. “Oh! oh! what luck! Oh!”

He took his head between his hands and swung it back and forth two or three times, as do imprisoned monkeys.

“Now go, Don Giovanino, go!” Rosa Cantana said, taking him gently by the arm and drawing him along.

In the little room the perfume seemed to increase. Innumerable flies buzzed around a cup where remained the residue of some coffee. The reflection of the water trembled on the walls like a subtle net of gold.

“Leave everything just so!” pleaded Don Giovanni of the woman, in a voice broken by badly suppressed sobs. He descended the stairs, shaking his head over his fate. His eyes were swollen and red, bulging from their sockets like those of a mongrel dog.

His round body and prominent stomach overweighted his two slightly inverted legs. Around his bald skull ran a crown of long curling hair that seemed not to take root in the scalp but in the shoulders, from which it climbed upward toward the nape of the neck and the temples. He had the habit of replacing from time to time with his bejewelled hands, some disarranged tuft; the jewels, precious and gaudy, sparkled even on his thumb, and a cornelian button as large as a strawberry fastened the bosom of his shirt over the centre of his chest.

When he reached the broad daylight of the square, he experienced anew that unconquerable confusion. Several cobblers were working near by and eating figs. A caged blackbird was whistling the hymn of Garibaldi, continuously, always recommencing at the beginning with painful persistency.

“At your service, Don Giovanni!” called Don Domenico Oliva, as he passed, and he removed his hat with an affable Neapolitan cordiality. Stirred with curiosity by the strange expression of the Signor, he repassed him in a short time and resaluted him with greater liberality of gesture and affability. He was a man of very long body and very short legs; the habitual expression of his mouth was involuntarily shaped for derision. The people of Pescara called him “Culinterra.”

“At your service!” he repeated.

Don Giovanni, in whom a venomous wrath was beginning to ferment which the laughter of the fig-eaters and the trills of the blackbird irritated, at his second salute turned his back fiercely and moved away, fully persuaded that those salutes were meant for taunts.

Don Domenico, astonished, followed him with these words:

“But, Don GiovÀ! ... are you angry ... but....”

Don Giovanni did not listen. He walked on with quick steps toward his home. The fruit-sellers and the blacksmiths along the road gazed and could not understand the strange behaviour of these two men, breathless and dripping with perspiration under the noonday sun.

Having arrived at his door, Don Giovanni, scarcely stopping to knock, turned like a serpent, yellow and green with rage, and cried:

“Don DomÈ, oh Don DomÈ, I will hit you!” With this threat, he entered his house and closed the door violently behind him.

Don Domenico, dumbfounded, stood for a time speechless. Then he retraced his steps, wondering what could account for this behaviour, when Matteo Verdura, one of the fig-eaters, called:

“Come here! Come here! I have a great bit of news to tell you.”

“What news?” asked the man of the long spine, as he approached.

“Don’t you know about it?”

“About what?”

“Ah! Ah! Then you haven’t heard yet?”

“Heard what?”

Verdura fell to laughing and the other cobblers imitated him. Spontaneously all of them shook with the same rasping and inharmonious mirth, differing only with the personality of each man.

“Buy three cents’ worth of figs and I will tell you.”

Don Domenico, who was niggardly, hesitated slightly, but curiosity conquered him.

“Very well, here it is.”

Verdura called a woman and had her heap up the fruit on a plate. Then he said:

“That signora who lived up there, Donna Violetta, do you remember...? That one of the theatre, do you remember...?”

“Well?”

“She has made off this morning. Crash!”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed, Don DomÈ.”

“Ah, now I understand!” exclaimed Don Domenico, who was a subtle man and cruelly malicious.

Then, as he wished to revenge himself for the offence given him by Don Giovanni and also to make up for the three cents expended for the news, he went immediately to the casino in order to divulge the secret and to enlarge upon it.

The “casino,” a kind of cafÉ, stood immersed in shadow, and up from its tables sprinkled with water, arose a singular odour of dust and musk. There snored Doctor Punzoni, relaxed upon a chair, with his arms dangling. The Baron Cappa, an old soul, full of affection for lame dogs and tender girls, nodded discreetly over a newspaper. Don Ferdinando Giordano moved little flags over a card representing the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian war. Don Settimio de Marinis appraised with Doctor Fiocca the works of Pietro Mettastasio, not without many vocal explosions and a certain flowery eloquency in the use of poetical expressions. The notary Gaiulli, not knowing with whom to play, shuffled the cards of his game alone, and laid them out in a row on the table. Don Paolo Seccia sauntered around the billiard table with steps calculated to assist the digestion.

Don Domenico Oliva entered with so much vehemence, that all turned toward him except Doctor Panzoni, who still remained in the embrace of slumber.

“Have you heard? Have you heard?”

Don Domenico was so anxious to tell the news, and so breathless, that at first he stuttered without making himself understood. All of these gentlemen around him hung upon his words, anticipating with delight any unusual occurrence that might enliven their noonday chatter.

Don Paolo Seccia, who was slightly deaf in one ear, said impatiently, “But have they tied your tongue, Don DomÈ?”

Don Domenico recommenced his story at the beginning, with more calmness and clearness. He told everything; enlarged on the rage of Don Giovanni Ussorio; added fantastic details; grew intoxicated with his own words as he went on.

“Now do you see? Now do you see?”

Doctor Panzoni, at the noise, opened his eyelids, rolling his huge pupils still dull with sleep and still blowing through the monstrous hairs of his nose, said or rather snorted nasally:

“What has happened? What has happened?”

And with much effort, bearing down on his walking stick, he raised himself very slowly, and joined the gathering in order to hear.

The Baron Cappa now narrated, with much saliva in his mouth, a well-nourished story apropos of Violetta Kutufa. From the pupils of the eyes of his intent listeners gleams flashed in turn. The greenish eyes of Don Palo Seccia scintillated as if bathed in some exhilarating moisture. At last the laughter burst out.

But Doctor Panzoni, though standing, had taken refuge again in slumber; since for him sleep, irresistible as a disease, always had its seat within his own nostrils.

He remained with his snores, alone in the centre of the room, his head upon his breast, while the others scattered over the entire district to carry the news from family to family.

And the news, thus divulged, caused an uproar in Pescara. Toward evening, with a fresh breeze from the sea and a crescent moon, everybody frequented the streets and squares. The hum of voices was infinite. The name of Violetta Kutufa was at every tongue’s end. Don Giovanni Ussorio was not to be seen.

II

Violetta Kutufa had come to Pescara in the month of January, at the time of the Carnival, with a company of singers. She spoke of being a Greek from the Archipelago, of having sung in a theatre at Corfu in the presence of the Greek king, and of having made mad with love an English admiral. She was a woman of plump figure and very white skin. Her arms were unusually round and full of small dimples that became pink with every change of motion; and these little dimples, together with her rings and all of those other graces suitable for a youthful person, helped to make her fleshiness singularly pleasing, fresh and tantalising. The features of her face were slightly vulgar, the eyes tan colour, full of slothfulness; her lips large and flat as if crushed. Her nose did not suggest Greek origin; it was short, rather straight, and with large inflated nostrils; her black hair was luxuriant. She spoke with a soft accent, hesitating at each word, smiling almost constantly. Her voice often became unexpectedly harsh.

When her company arrived, the Pescaresi were frantic with expectation. The foreign singers were lauded everywhere, for their gestures, their gravity of movement, their costumes, and for every other accomplishment. But the person upon whom all attention centred was Violetta Kutufa.

She wore a kind of dark bolero bordered with fur and held together in front with gilt aiglettes; on her head was a species of toque, all fur, and worn a little to one side. She walked about alone, stepping briskly, entered the shops, treated the shop-keepers with a certain disdain, complained of the mediocrity of their wares, left without making a purchase, hummed with indifference.

Everywhere, in the squares, on all of the walls large hand-bills announced the performance of “The Countess of Amalfi.” The name of Violetta Kutufa was resplendent in vermilion letters. The souls of the Pescaresi kindled. At length the long looked-for evening arrived.

The theatre was in a room of the old military hospital, at the edge of the town near the sea. The room was low, narrow, and as long as a corridor; the stage, of wood with painted scenery, arose a few hands’ breadths above the floor; along the side walls was the gallery, consisting of boards over saw-horses covered with tricoloured flags and decorated with festoons. The curtain, a masterpiece of CucuzzitÓ, son of CucuzzitÓ, depicted tragedy, comedy and music, interwoven, like the three Graces, and flitting over a bridge under which passed the blue stream of Pescara. The chairs for the theatre, taken from the churches, occupied half of the pit. The benches, taken from the schools, occupied the remaining space.

Toward seven in the evening, the village band started its music on the square, played until it had made the circuit of the town and at length stopped in front of the theatre. The resounding march inspired the souls of passers-by. The women curbed their impatience within the folds of their beautiful silk garments. The room filled up rapidly.

The gallery was radiant with a sparkling aureole of married and unmarried women. Teodolinda Pomarici, a sentimental, lymphatic elocutionist, sat near Fermina Memura, called “The Masculine.” The Fusilli girls, arrived from Castellamare, tall maidens with very black eyes, all clothed in a uniform, pink material, with hair braided down their backs, laughed loudly and gesticulated. Emilia d’Annunzio used her beautiful lion-like eyes, with an air of infinite fatigue. Marianina Cortese made signs with her fan to Donna Rachele Profeta who sat in front of her. Donna Rachele Bucci argued with Donna Rachele Carabba on the subjects of speaking tables and spiritualism. The school-mistresses Del Gado, both clothed in changeable silk with mantillas of most antique fashion, and with diverse coiffures glittering with brass spangles, remained silent, compunctious, almost stunned by the novelty of this experience, almost repentant for having come to so profane a spectacle. Costanza Lesbu coughed continuously, shivering under her red shawl, very pale, very blond and very thin.

In the foremost chairs of the pit sat the wealthiest citizens. Don Giovanni Ussorio was most prominent because of his well-groomed appearance, his splendid black and white checkered trousers, his coat of shining wool, his quantity of false jewelry on fingers and shirt-front. Don Antonio Brattella, a member of the Areopagus of Marseilles, a man exhaling importance from every pore and especially from the lobe of his left ear, which was as thick as a green apricot, recited in a loud voice the lyric drama of Giovanni Peruzzini, and his words as they fell from his lips acquired a certain Ciceronian resonance. The auditors, lolling in their chairs, stirred with more or less impatience. Dr. Panzoni wrestled all to no purpose with the wiles of sleep, and from time to time made a noise that blended with the “la” of the tuning instruments.

“Pss! psss! pssss!”

The silence in the theatre grew profound. At the lifting of the curtain the stage was empty. The sound of a Violoncello came from the wings. Tilde appeared and sang. Afterwards Sertorio came out and sang. After him, a crowd of supernumeraries and friends, entered and intoned a song. After them, Tilde drew toward a window and sang:

In the audience a slight movement was perceptible, since all felt a love duet to be imminent. Tilde, in truth, was a first soprano, none too young; she wore a blue costume, had a blond wig that insufficiently covered her head, and her face, whitened with powder, resembled a raw cutlet besprinkled with flour and partially hidden behind a hempen wig.

Egidio came on. He was the young tenor. As he had a chest singularly hollow and legs slightly curved, he resembled a double-handed spoon upon which hung a calf’s head, scraped and polished like those which one sees at times over the butcher-shops. He began:

And Tilde, with great force of sentiment, replied:

The duet increased in tenderness. The melody of the cavalier Petrella delighted the ears of the audience. All of the women leaned intently over the rails of the gallery and their faces, throbbing in the green reflection of the flags, were pallid.

Tilde appeared; and now entered, singing, the Duke Carnioli, who was a man fat, fierce, and long haired enough, to be suited to the part of baritone. He sang with many flourishes, running over the syllables, sometimes moreover boldly suppressing.

But, when in the song, he mentioned at length the Countess of Amalfi, a long applause broke from the audience. The Countess was desired, demanded.

Don Giovanni Ussorio asked of Don Antonio Brattella:

“When is she coming?”

Don Antonio, in a lofty tone, replied:

“Oh! Dio mio, Don GiovÀ! Don’t you know? In the second act! In the second act!”

The speech of Sertorio was listened to with half-impatience. The curtain fell in the midst of weak applause. Thus began the triumphs of Violetta Kutufa. A prolonged murmur ran through the pit, through the gallery, and increased when the audience heard the blows of the scene-shifters’ hammers behind the curtain. That invisible hustling increased their expectation.

When the curtain went up a kind of spell held the audience in its grip. The scenic effect was marvellous. Three illuminated arches stretched themselves in perspective, and the middle one bordered a fantastic garden.

Several pages were dispersed here and there, and were bowing. The Countess of Amalfi, clothed in red velvet, with her regal train, her arms and shoulders bare, her face ruddy, entered with agitated step and sang:

Her voice was uneven, sometimes twanging, but always powerful and penetrating. It produced on the audience a singular effect after the whine of Tilde. Immediately the audience was divided into two factions; the women were for Tilde, the men for Leonora.

Leonora possessed in her personality, in her gestures, her movements, a sauciness that intoxicated and kindled those unmarried men who were accustomed to the flabby Venuses of the lanes of Sant’ Agostino, and to those husbands who were wearied with conjugal monotony.

All gazed at the singer’s every motion, at her large white shoulders, where, with the movements of her round arms, two dimples tried to smile.

At the end of her solo, applause broke forth with a crash. Later, the swooning of the Countess, her dissimulation before the Duke Carnioli (the leader of the duet), the whole scene aroused applause. The heat in the room had become intense; in the galleries fans fluttered confusedly, and among the fans the women’s faces appeared and disappeared.

When the Countess leaned against a column in an attitude of sentimental contemplation, illuminated by the calcium light, and Egidio sang his gentle love song, Don Antonio Brattella called loudly, “She is great!”

Don Giovanni Ussorio, with a sudden impulse, fell to clapping his hands alone. The others shouted at him to be silent, as they wished to hear. Don Giovanni became confused.

The heads of the listeners swayed with the rhythm of this melody of the Petrella style, even though the voice of Egidio was indifferent; and even though the light was glaring and yellowish their eyes drank in the scene. But when, after this last contrast of passion and seduction, the Countess of Amalfi, walking toward the garden, took up the melody alone, the melody that still vibrated in the minds of all, the delight of the audience had risen to such a height that many raised their heads and inclined them slightly backward as if to trill together with the siren, who was now concealed among the flowers. She sang:

At this climax, Violetta Kutufa made a complete conquest of Don Giovanni Ussorio, who beside himself, seized with a species of passionate, musical madness, clamoured continuously:

“Brava! Brava! Brava!”

Don Paolo Seccia called loudly:

“Oh, see here! see here! Ussorio has gone mad for her!”

All the women gazed at Ussorio, amazed and confused. The school-mistresses Del Gado shook their rosaries under their mantillas. Teodolinda Pomarici remained ecstatic. Only the Fasilli girls, in their red paint, preserved their vivacity, and chattered, shaking their serpentine braids with every movement.

In the third act, neither the dying sighs of Tilde, whom the women defended, nor the rebuffs of Sertorio and Carnioli, nor the songs of the chorus, nor the monologue of the melancholy Egidio, nor the joyfulness of the dames and cavaliers, held any power to distract the public from the preceding voluptuousness.

“Leonora! Leonora! Leonora!” they cried.

Leonora reappeared on the arm of the Count of Lara and descended from a pavilion. Thus she reached the very culmination of her triumph.

She wore now a violet gown, trimmed with silver ribbons and enormous clasps. She turned to the pit, while with her foot she gave a quick, backward stroke to her train, and exposed in the act her instep.

Then, mingling with her words, a thousand charms and a thousand affectations, she sang half-jestingly,

The public grew almost delirious at this well-known song.

The Countess of Amalfi, on feeling mount up to her the ardent admiration of the men, became intoxicated, multiplied her seductive gestures, and raised her voice to the highest altitude of which she was capable. Her fleshly throat, uncovered, marked with the necklace of Venus, shook with trills.

Don Giovanni Ussorio stared with so much intensity, that his eyes seemed to start from their sockets. The Baron Cappa was equally enchanted. Don Antonio Brattella, a member of the Areopagus of Marseilles, swelled and swelled, until at length burst fro-m him the exclamation:

“Colossal!”

III

Thus, Violetta Kutufa made a conquest of Pescara. For more than a month performances of the opera of the Cavalier Petrella, continued with ever increasing popularity. The theatre was always full, even packed. Applause for Leonora broke out furiously at the end of every song. A singular phenomenon occurred; the entire population of Pescara seemed seized with a species of musical mania; every Pescarenican soul became inclosed in the magic circle of one single melody, that of the butterfly that sports among the flowers.

In every corner, at every hour, in every way, in every possible variation, on every instrument, with an astounding persistency, that melody was repeated; and the person of Violetta Kutufa became the symbol of those musical strains, just as—God pardon the comparison—the harmony of the organ suggests the soul of paradise.

The musical and lyrical comprehension, which in the southern people is instinctive, expanded at this time without limit. The street gamins whistled everywhere; all the amateur musicians put forth their efforts, Donna Lisitta Menuma played the tune on the harpsichord from dawn until dusk, Don Antonio Brattella played it on the flute, Don Domenico Quaquino, on the clarionette, Don Giacomo Palusci, the priest, on an old rococo spinet, Don Vincenzio Rapagneta on his violoncello, Don Vincenzio Ranieri on the trumpet, Don Nicola d’Annunzio, on his violin. From the towers of Sant’ Agostino to the Arsenal, and from Pescheria to Dogana the multifold sounds mingled together and became a discord. In the early hours of the afternoon the district had the appearance of some large hospital for incurable madness. Even the grinders sharpening knives on their wheels tried to maintain a rhythm in the shriek of the metal and the whetstone.

As it was the time of the carnival, a public festival was given in the theatre. Shrove Thursday, at ten in the evening, the room blazed with wax-candles, smelt strongly of myrtle and glittered with mirrors. The masked revellers entered in crowds. Punchinellos predominated. From a platform enveloped in green draperies, marked with constellations of stars of silver paper, the orchestra began to play and Don Giovanni Ussorio entered.

He was dressed like a grandee of Spain, and had the appearance of a very fat Count of Lara. A blue cap with a long, white plume covered his baldness, a short coat of red velvet garnished with gold rippled over his shoulders. This costume accentuated the prominence of his stomach and the skinniness of his legs. His locks, shining with cosmetic oils, resembled an artificial fringe bound around his cap, and they were blacker than usual.

An impertinent Punchinello, on passing him, cried in a disguised voice:

“How funny!”

He made a gesture of horror, so clownish, at this metamorphosis of “Don Giovanni,” that much laughter burst forth from everyone in the vicinity. La Cicarina, all red paint under the black hood of her domino, like a beautiful flower of the flesh, laughed sonorously, while she tripped with two ragged harlequins.

Don Giovanni, filled with anger, lost himself in the crowd and sought Violetta Kutufa. The sarcasms of the other revellers pursued and wounded him. Suddenly he encountered another grandee of Spain, another count of Lara. He recognised Don Antonio Brattella and, at this, received a thrust in the heart. Already, between these two men, rivalry had broken loose.

“How is the medlar?” Don Donato Brandimarte screamed venomously, alluding to the fleshy protuberance that the member of the Areopagus of Marseilles had on his left ear. Don Giovanni took a fierce pleasure in this insult.

The rivals met face to face, scanned each other from head to foot, and kept their respective stations, the one always slightly withdrawn from the other, as they wandered through the crowd.

At eleven, an agitated flutter passed over the crowd. Violetta Kutufa entered. She was dressed in Mephistophelian costume, in a black domino with long scarlet hood, and with a scarlet mask over her face. The round, swan-like chin, the thick red mouth, shone through her thin veil. The eyes, lengthened and rendered slightly oblique because of the mask, seemed to smile.

All instantaneously recognised her and almost all made way for her; Don Antonio Brattella advanced caressingly on one side. On the other came Don Giovanni; Violetta Kutufa made a hasty survey of the rings that adorned the fingers of the latter, then took the arm of Brattella.

She laughed and walked with a certain sprightly undulation of the hips. Brattella, while talking to her in his customary, silly, vainglorious manner, called her “Contessa,” and interspersed their conversation with the lyrical verses of Giovanni Peruzzini.

She laughed and leaned toward him, and pressed his arm suggestively, since the weaknesses of this ugly, vain man amused her. At a certain point, Brattella, when repeating the words of the Count of Lara in the melodrama of Petrella, said or rather sang submissively:

Violetta Kutufa answered in the words of Leonora:

Then, seeing Don Giovanni not far away, she detached herself from this bewitching chevalier, and fastened upon the other, who already for some time had pursued with eyes full of envy and dislike, the windings of this couple through the crowd of dancers.

Don Giovanni trembled like a youth under the glance of his first sweetheart. Then, seized with a superabundant pride, he drew the opera singer into the dance. He whirled breathlessly around, with his nose against the woman’s chest, his cloak floating out behind, his plume fluttering to the breeze, streams of perspiration mixed with cosmetic oils filtering down his temples.

Exhausted, he stopped at length. He reeled with giddiness. Two hands supported him and a sneering voice whispered in his ear, “Don GiovÀ, stop and recover your breath for a minute!”

The voice was that of Brattella, who in turn drew the fair lady into the dance. He danced, holding his left arm arched over his hips, beating time with his feet, endeavouring to appear as light as a feather, with motions meant to be gracious, but instead so idiotic, and with grimaces so monkey-like, that everywhere the laughter and mockery of the Punchinellos began to pelt down upon him.

“Pay a cent to see it, gentlemen!”

“Here is the bear of Poland that dances like a Christian! Gaze on him, gentlemen!”

“Have a medlar? Have a medlar?”

“Oh, see! See! An orangoutang!”

Don Antonio Brattella controlled himself with much dignity, still continuing his dance. Other couples wheeled around him.

The room was filled with all kinds of people, and in the midst of the confusion the candles burned on, with their reddish flames lighting up the festoons of immortelles. All of this fluttering reflected itself in the mirrors.

La Ciccarina, the daughter of Montagna, the daughter of Suriano, the sisters Montarano, appeared and disappeared, while enlivening the crowd with the beams of their fresh country loveliness. Donna Teodolinda Pomarici, tall and thin, clothed in blue satin, like a madonna, permitted herself to be borne about in a state of transport as her hair, loosened from its bands, waved upon her shoulders. Costanzella Coppe, the most agile and indefatigable of the dancers, and the palest, flew from one extremity of the room to the other in a flash; Amalia Solofra, with hair almost aflame in colour, clothed like a rustic, her audacity almost unequalled, had her silk waist supported by a single band that outlined the connecting point of her arm; and during the dance, at intervals, one could see dark stains under her armpits. Amalia Gagliano, a beautiful, blue-eyed creature, in the costume of a sorceress, resembled an empty coffin walking vertically. A species of intoxication held sway over all these girls. They were fermenting in the warm, dense air, like adulterated wine. The laurel and the immortelles gave out a singular odour, almost ecclesiastical.

The music ceased, now all mounted the stairs leading to the refreshment-room. Don Giovanni Ussorio came to invite Violetta to the banquet. Brattella, to show that he had reached a state of close intimacy with the opera-singer, leaned toward her and whispered something in her ear, and then fell to laughing about it. Don Giovanni no longer heeded his rival.

“Come, Contessa,” he said, with much ceremony, as he offered his arm.

Violetta accepted. Both mounted the stairs slowly with Don Antonio in the rear.

“I am in love with you!” Don Giovanni hazarded, trying to instil into his voice that note of passion, rendered familiar to him by the principal lover of a dramatic company of Chieti.

Violetta Kutufa did not answer. She was amusing herself by watching the concourse of people near the booth of Andreuccio, who was distributing refreshments, while shouting the prices in a loud voice as if at a country-fair. Andreuccio had an enormous head with polished top, a nose that curved wondrously over the projection of his lower lip; he resembled one of those large paper lanterns in the shape of a human head. The revellers ate and drank with a bestial greediness, scattering on their clothes crumbs of sweet pastry and drops of liquor. On seeing Don Giovanni, Andreuccio cried, “Signor, at your service.”

Don Giovanni had much wealth, and was a widower without blood relations; for which reasons everybody was desirous to be of service to him and to flatter him.

“A little supper,” he answered. “And take care...!” He made an expressive sign to indicate that the thing must be excellent and rare.

Violetta Kutufa sat down, and with a languid effort removed her mask from her face and opened her domino a little. Her face, surrounded by the scarlet hood, and animated with warmth, seemed even more saucy. Through the opening of the domino one saw a species of pink tights that gave a suggestion of living flesh.

“Your health!” exclaimed Don Pompeo Nervi, lingering before the well-furnished table, and seating himself at length, allured by a plate of juicy lobsters.

Then Don Tito de Sieri arrived and took a place without ceremony; also Don Giustino Franco, together with Don Pasquale Virgilio and Don Federico Sicoli appeared. The group of guests at the table continued to swell. After much tortuous tracing and retracing of his steps, even Don Antonio Brattella came finally. These were, for the most part, habitual guests of Don Giovanni; they formed about him a kind of adulatory court, gave their votes to him in the town elections, laughed at every witticism of his, and called him by way of nickname, “The Director.” Don Giovanni introduced them all to Violetta Kutufa. These parasites set themselves to eating with their voracious mouths bent over their plates.

Every word, every sentence of Don Antonio Brattella was listened to in hostile silence. Every word, every sentence of Don Giovanni, was recognised with complacent smiles and nods of the head. Don Giovanni triumphed in the centre of his court. Violetta Kutufa treated him with affability, now that she felt the force of his gold; and now, entirely free from her hood, with her locks slightly dishevelled on forehead and neck, she indulged in her usual playfulness, somewhat noisy and childish. Around them the crowd moved restlessly.

In the centre of it, three or four harlequins walked on the pavement with their hands and feet, and rolled like great beetles. Amalia Solofra, standing upon a chair, with her long arms bare to the elbows, shook a tambourine. Around her a couple hopped in rustic fashion, giving out short cries, while a group of youths stood looking on with eager eyes. At intervals, from the lower room ascended the voice of Don Ferdinando Giordano, who was ordering the quadrille with great bravado.

“Balance! Forward and back! Swing!”

Little by little Violetta Kutufa’s table became full to overflowing. Don Nereo Pica, Don Sebastiano Pica, Don Grisostomo Troilo and others of this Ussorian court arrived; even to Don Cirillo d’Amelio, Don Camillo d’Angelo and Don Rocco Mattace.

Many strangers stood about with stupid expressions, and watched them eat. Women were envious. From time to time a burst of rough laughter arose from the table, and from time to time corks popped and the foam of wine overflowed.

Don Giovanni took pleasure in splashing his guests, especially the bald ones, in order to make Violetta laugh. The parasites raised their flushed faces, and, still eating, smiled at their “Director” from under the foamy rain. But Don Antonio Brattella, having taken offence, made as if to go. All of the feasters opposite him gave a low cry like a bark.

Violetta called, “Stay.” Don Antonio remained. After this he gave a toast rhyming in quintains. Don Federico Sicoli, half intoxicated, gave a toast likewise in honour of Violetta and of Don Giovanni, in which he went so far as to speak of “divine shape” and “jolly times.” He declaimed in a loud voice. He was a man long, thin and greenish in colour. He lived by composing verses of Saints’ days and laudations for all ecclesiastical festivals. Now, in the midst of his drunkenness, the rhymes fell from his lips without order, old rhymes and new ones. At a certain point, no longer able to balance on his legs, he bent like a candle softened by heat and was silent.

Violetta Kutufa was overcome with laughter. The crowd jammed around the table as if at a spectacle.

“Let us go,” Violetta said at this moment, putting on her mask and hood.

Don Giovanni, at the culmination of his amorous enthusiasm, all red and perspiring, took her arm. The parasites drank the last drop and then arose confusedly behind the couple.

IV

A few days after, Violetta Kutufa was inhabiting an apartment in one of Don Giovanni’s houses on the town square, and much hearsay floated through Pescara. The company of singers departed from Brindisi without the Countess of Amalfi. In the solemn, quiet Lenten days, the Pescaresi took a modest delight in gossip and calumny. Every day a new tale made the circuit of the city, and every day a new creation arose from the popular imagination.

Violetta Kutufa’s house was in the neighbourhood of Sant’ Agostino, opposite the Brina palace and adjoining the palace of Memma. Every evening the windows were illuminated and the curious assembled beneath them.

Violetta received visitors in a room tapestried with French fabrics on which were depicted in French style various mythological subjects. Two round-bodied vases of the seventeenth century occupied the two sides of the chimney-piece. A yellow sofa extended along the opposite wall between two curtains of similar material. On the chimney-piece stood a plaster Venus and a small Venus di Medici between two gilt candelabra. On the shelves rested various porcelain vases, a bunch of artificial flowers under a crystal globe, a basket of wax fruit, a Swiss cottage, a block of alum, several sea-shells and a cocoanut.

At first her guests had been reluctant, through a sense of modesty, to mount the stairs of the opera singer. Later, little by little, they had overcome all hesitation. Even the most serious men made from time to time their appearance in the salon of Violetta Kutufa; even men of family; and they went there almost with trepidation, with furtive delight, as if they were about to commit a slight crime against their wives, as if they were about to enter a place of soothing perdition and sin. They united in twos and threes, formed alliances for greater security and justification, laughed among themselves and nudged one another in turn for encouragement. Then the stream of light from the windows, the strains from the piano, the song of the Countess of Amalfi, the voices and applause of her guests excited them. They were seized with a sudden enthusiasm, threw out their chests, held up their heads with youthful pride and mounted resolutely, deciding that after all one had to taste of life and cull opportunities for enjoyment.

But Violetta’s receptions had an air of great propriety, were almost formal. She welcomed the new arrivals with courtesy and offered them syrups in water and cordials. The newcomers remained slightly astonished, did not know quite how to behave, where to sit, what to say. The conversations turned upon the weather, on political news, on the substance of the Lenten sermons, on other matter-of-fact and tedious topics.

Don Giuseppe Postiglioni spoke of the pretensions of the Prussian Prince Hohenzollern to the throne of Spain; Don Antonio Brattella delighted in discoursing on the immortality of the soul and other inspiring matters. The doctrine of Brattella was stupendous. He spoke slowly and emphatically, from time to time, pronouncing a difficult word rapidly and eating up the syllables. To quote an authentic report, one evening, on taking a wand and bending it, he said: “Oh, how fleible!” for flexible; another evening, pointing to his plate and making excuses for not being able to play the flute, he vouchsafed: “My entire p-l-ate is inflamed!” and still another evening, on indicating the shape of a vase, he said that in order to make children take medicine, it was necessary to scatter with some sweet substance the origin of the glass.

At intervals Don Paolo Seccia, incredulous soul, on hearing singular matters recounted, jumped up with: “But Don AntÒ, what do you mean to say?”

Don Antonio repeated his remark with a hand on his heart and a challenging expression, “My testimony is ocular! Entirely ocular.” One evening he came, walking with great effort and carefully, painstakingly prepared to sit down; he had “a cold, the length of the spine!” Another evening he arrived with the right cheek slightly bruised; he had fallen “underhand”; in other words, he had slipped and struck his face on the ground. Thus were the conversations of these gatherings made up. Don Giovanni Ussorio, always present, had the airs of a proprietor; every so often he approached Violetta with ostentation and murmured something familiarly in her ear. Long intervals of silence occurred, during which Don Grisostomo Troilo blew his nose and Don Federico Sicoli coughed like a consumptive, holding both hands to his mouth and then shaking them.

The opera-singer revived the conversation with accounts of her triumphs at Corfu, Ancona and Bari. Little by little she grew animated, abandoned herself to her imagination; with discreet reserve she spoke of princely “amours,” of royal favours, of romantic adventures; she thus evoked all of those confused recollections of novels read at other times, and trusted liberally to the credulity of her listeners. Don Giovanni at these times turned his eyes upon her full of inquietude, almost bewildered; moreover experiencing a singular irritation that had an indistinct resemblance to jealousy. Violetta at length ended with a stupid smile and the conversation languished anew.

Then Violetta went to the piano and sang. All listened with profound attention; at the end they applauded. Then Don Brattella arose with the flute. An immeasurable melancholy took hold of his listeners at that sound, a kind of swooning of body and soul. They rested with heads lowered almost to their breasts in attitudes of sufferance. At last all left, one after the other. As they took the hand of Violetta a slight scent from the strong perfume of musk remained on their fingers, and this excited them further. Then, once more in the street, they reunited in groups, holding loose discourse. They grew inflamed, lowered their voices and were silent if anyone drew near. Softly they withdrew from beneath the Brina palace to another part of the square. There they set themselves to watching Violetta’s windows, still illuminated. Across the panes passed indistinct shadows; at a certain time the light disappeared, traversed two or three rooms and stopped in the last window. Shortly, a figure leaned out to close the shutters. Those spying thought they recognised in it the figure of Don Giovanni. They still continued to discuss beneath the stars and from time to time laughed, while giving one another little nudges, and gesticulating. Don Antonio Brattella, perhaps from the reflection of the city-lamps, seemed a greenish colour. The parasites, little by little in their discourse spit out a certain animosity toward the opera-singer, who was plucking so gracefully their lord of good times. They feared lest those generous feasts might be in peril; already Don Giovanni was more sparing of his invitations.

“It will be necessary to open the eyes of the poor fellow. An adventuress! Bah! She is capable of making him marry her. Why not? And then what a scandal!”

Don Pompeo Nervi, shaking his large calf’s head, assented:

“You are right! You are right! We must bethink ourselves.”

Don Nereo Pica, “The Cat,” proposed a way, conjured up schemes; this pious man, accustomed to the secret and laborious skirmishes of the sacristy was crafty in the sowing of discord.

Thus these complainers treated together and their fat speeches only returned again into their bitter mouths. As it was spring the foliage of the public gardens smelt and trembled before them with white blossoms and through the neighbouring paths they saw, about to disappear, the figures of loosely-dressed prostitutes.

V

When, therefore, Don Giovanni Ussorio, after having heard from Rosa Catana of the departure of Violetta Kutufa, re-entered his widower’s house and heard his parrot humming the air of the butterfly and the bee, he was seized by a new and more profound discouragement.

In the entrance a girdle of sunlight penetrated boldly and through the iron grating one saw the tranquil garden full of heliotropes. His servant slept upon a bench with a straw hat pulled down over his face.

Don Giovanni did not wake the servant. He mounted the stairs with difficulty, his eyes fixed upon the steps, pausing every now and then to mutter: “Oh, what a thing to happen! Oh, oh, what luck!”

Having reached his room he threw himself upon the bed and with his mouth against the pillows, began again to weep. Later he arose; the silence was deep and the trees of the garden as tall as the window waved slightly in the stillness. There was nothing of the unusual in the things about him; he almost wondered at this.

He fell to thinking and remained a long time calling to mind the positions, the gestures, the words, the slightest motions of the deserter. He saw her form as clearly as if she were present. At every recollection his grief increased until at length a kind of dulness benumbed his mind. He remained sitting on the bed, almost motionless, his eyes red, his forehead blackened from the colouring matter of his hair mixed with perspiration, his face furrowed with wrinkles that had suddenly become more evident; he had aged ten years in an hour, a change both amusing and pathetic.

Don Grisostomo Troilo, who had heard the news, arrived. He was a man of advanced age, of short stature and with a round, swollen face from which spread out sharp, thin whiskers, well waxed and resembling the two wings of a bird. He said:

“Now, GiovÀ, what is the matter?”

Don Giovanni did not answer, but shook his shoulders as if to repel all sympathy. Don Grisostomo then began to reprove him benevolently, never speaking of Violetta Kutufa.

In came Don Cirillo d’Amelio with Don Nereo Pica. Both, on entering, showed almost an air of triumph.

“Now you have seen for yourself, Don GiovÀ! We told you so! We told you so!” they cried. Both had nasal voices and a cadence acquired from the habit of singing with the organ, because they belonged to the choir of the Holy Sacrament. They began to attack the character of Violetta without mercy. She did this and that and the other thing, they said.

Don Giovanni, outraged, made from time to time a motion as if he would not hear such slanders, but the two continued. Now, also, Don Pasquale Virgilio arrived, with Don Pompeo Nervi, Don Federico Sicoli, Don Tito de Sieri; almost all of the parasites came in a group. Supporting one another they became ferocious. Did he not know that Violetta Kutufa had abandoned herself to Tom, Dick and Harry...? Indeed she had! Indeed! They laid bare the exact particulars, the exact places.

Now Don Giovanni heard with eyes afire, greedy to know, invaded by a terrible curiosity. These revelations instead of disgusting him, fed his desire. Violetta seemed to him more enticing, even more beautiful; and he felt himself inwardly bitten by a raging jealousy that blended with his grief. Presently the woman appeared in his mind’s eye associated with a certain soft relaxation. That picture made him giddy.

“Oh Dio! Oh Dio! Oh! Oh!” He commenced to weep again. Those present looked at one another and restrained their laughter. In truth the grief of that man; fleshy, bald, deformed, expressed itself so ridiculously that it seemed unreal.

“Go away now!” Don Giovanni blubbered through his tears.

Don Grisostomo Troilo set the example; the others followed him and chattered as they passed down the stairs.

Toward evening the prostrated man revived little by little. A woman’s voice called at his door: “May I come in, Don Giovanni?”

He recognised Rosa Catana’s voice and experienced suddenly an instinctive joy. He ran to let her in. Rosa Catana appeared in the dusk of the room.

“Come in! Come in!” he cried. He made her sit down beside him, had her talk to him, asked her a thousand questions. He seemed to suffer less on hearing that familiar voice in which, under the spell of an illusion, he found some quality of Violetta’s voice. He took her hands and cried:

“You helped her to dress! Did you not?”

He caressed those rugged hands, closing his eyes and wandering slightly in his mind on the subject of those abundant, unbound locks that so many times he had touched with his hands. Rosa at first did not understand. She believed this to be some sudden passion of Don Giovanni, and withdrew her hands gently, while she spoke in an ambiguous way and laughed. But Don Giovanni murmured:

“No, no!... Stay! You combed her, did you not? You bathed her, did you not?”

He fell to kissing Rosa’s hands, those hands that had combed, bathed and clothed Violetta. He stammered, while kissing them, composed verses so strange that Rosa could scarcely refrain from laughter. But at last she understood and with feminine perception forced herself to remain serious, while she summed up the advantages that might ensue from this foolish comedy. She grew docile, let him caress her, let him call her Violetta, made use of all that experience acquired from peeping through key-holes many times at her mistress’s door; she even sought to make her voice more sweet.

In the room one could scarcely see them. Through the open windows a red reflection entered and the trees in the garden, almost black, twisted and turned in the wind. From the sloughs around the arsenal came the hoarse croak of the frogs. The noises of the city street were indistinct.

Don Giovanni drew the woman to his knees, and, completely confused as if he had swallowed some very’ strong liquor, murmured a thousand childish nothings and babbled on without end, drawing her face close to his.

“Ah, darling little Violetta!” he whispered. “Sweetheart! Don’t go away, dear...! If you go away your Nini will die, Poor Nini...! Ban-ban-ban-bannn!”

Thus he continued stupidly, as he had done before with the opera-singer. Rosa Catana patiently offered him slight caresses, as if he were a very sick, perverted child; she took his head and pressed it against her shoulder, kissed his swollen, weeping eyes, stroked his bald crown, rearranged his oiled locks.

VI

Thus, Rosa Catana, little by little, earned her inheritance from Don Giovanni Ussorio, who, in the March of 1871, died of paralysis.