This necessity for hating does not, however, prevent the Podesta from falling very violently in love with a strolling actress called La Tisbe (personated by Mademoiselle Mars). The Tisbe also is a very remarkably virtuous, amiable, and high-minded woman, who listens to the addresses of the Tyrant pas doux, but hates him as cordially as he hates his lady-wife, bestowing all her tenderness and private caresses upon a travelling gentleman, who is a prince in disguise, but whom she passes off upon the Tyrant for her brother. La Tisbe, too, shall give you her own account of herself.
"LA TISBE (addressing Angelo).
"Vous savez qui je suis? ... rien, une fille du peuple, une comédienne.... Eh bien! si peu que je suis, j'ai eu une mère. Savez-vous ce que c'est que d'avoir une mère? En avez-vous eu une, vous?... Eh bien! j'avais une mère, moi."
This appears to be a species of refinement upon the old saying, "It is a wise child that knows its own father." The charming Tisbe evidently piques herself upon her sagacity in being quite certain that she had a mother;—but she has not yet finished her story.
"C'était une pauvre femme sans mari qui chantait des chansons dans les places publiques." (The "delicate" Esmeralda again.) "Un jour, un sénateur passa. Il regarde, il entendit," (she must have been singing the Ça ira of 1549,) "et dit au capitaine qui le suivait—A la potence cette femme! Ma mère fut saisie sur-le-champ—elle ne dit rien ... a quoi bon? ... m'embrassa avec une grosse larme, prit son crucifix et se laissa garrotter. Je le vois encore ce crucifix en cuivre poli, mon nom Tisbe écrit en bas.... Mais il y avait avec le sénateur une jeune fille.... Elle se jeta aux pieds du sénateur et obtint la grace de ma mère.... Quand ma mère fut déliée, elle prit son crucifix, ma mère, et le donna à la belle enfant, en lui disant, Madame, gardez ce crucifix—il vous portera bonheur."
Imagine Mademoiselle Mars uttering this trash!... Oh, it was grievous! And if I do not greatly mistake, she admired her part quite as little as I did, though she exerted all her power to make it endurable,—and there were passages, certainly, in which she succeeded in making one forget everything but herself, her voice, and her action.
But to proceed. On this crucifix de cuivre poli, inscribed with the name of Tisbe, hangs all the little plot. Catarina Bragadini, the wife of the Tyrant, and the most ill-used and meritorious of ladies, is introduced to us in the third scene of the second day (new style—acts are out of fashion,) lamenting to her confidential femme de chambre the intolerable long absence of her lover. The maid listens, as in duty bound, with the most respectful sympathy, and then tells her that another of her waiting-maids for whom she had inquired was at prayers. Whereupon we have a morsel of naïveté that is impayable.
"CATARINA.
"Laisse-la prier.—Hélas! ... moi, cela ne me fait rien de prier!"
This, I suspect, is what is called "the natural vein," in which consists the peculiar merit of this new style of writing. After this charming burst of natural feeling, the Podesta's virtuous lady goes on with her lament.