[5]Chioggia!
[SECOND PART]
I do not propose, my friends, to describe all the vicissitudes which marked my passage from the beach at Chioggia to the stage of the leading theatres in Italy, and from the trade of fisherman to the rôle of primo tenore; that was the work of several years, and my reputation increased rapidly as soon as I had taken the first step in my career. If circumstances were often unfavorable, my easy-going disposition was always able to make the best of them, and I can fairly say that my great successes did not cost me very dear.
Ten years after leaving Venice, I was at Naples, playing Romeo at the San Carlo theatre. King Murat and his brilliant staff, and all the vain and venal beauties of Italy, were there. I did not pride myself on being a particularly ardent patriot, but I did not share the infatuation of that period for foreign domination. I did not turn my face backward toward a still more degrading past; I fed upon the first elements of Carbonarism, which were then fermenting, without definite shape or name, from Prussia to Sicily.
My heroism was simple and intense, as all religions are at their birth. I carried into all that I did, and especially into my art, the feeling of mocking pride and democratic independence which inspired me every day in the clubs and in clandestine pamphlets. Friends of Truth, Friends of Light, Friends of Liberty—such were the names under which liberal sympathies gathered; and even in the ranks of the French army, at the very side of the victorious leaders, we had associates, children of your great revolution, who, in their secret hearts, were determined to wash away the stain of the 18th Brumaire.
I loved the rôle of Romeo, because I could give expression in it to warlike sentiments and feelings of chivalrous detestation. When my audience, always half French, applauded my dramatic outbursts, I felt as if I were revenged for our national degradation; for those conquerors were unconsciously applauding curses aimed at them, longings for their death and threats to attain it.
One evening, during one of my finest moments, when it seemed as if the roof would fall under the explosions of frantic applause, my eyes fell upon a face in a proscenium box almost on the stage, an impassive face, the sight of which made my blood suddenly run cold. You have no idea of the mysterious influences which govern the actor's inspiration, how the expression of certain faces absorbs him, and stimulates or deadens his audacity. Speaking for myself at least, I cannot avoid an instant sympathy with my audience, whether the effect is to spur me on if I find it inclined to resist, until I subjugate it by my passion, or to melt us into one as by the action of an electric current, so that its quick response imparts new vigor to my sensitive talent. But certain glances, or certain words spoken in whispers close beside me, have sometimes disturbed me so that it required the utmost effort of which my will was capable to combat their effect.
The face that impressed me at that moment was ideally beautiful; its owner was beyond dispute the most beautiful woman in the whole theatre. Meanwhile, the whole audience was roaring and stamping in admiration, and she alone, the queen of the evening, seemed to be studying me dispassionately, and to discover faults which the vulgar eye could not detect. She was the Muse of Tragedy, stern Melpomene in person, with her regular oval face, her black eyebrows, her high forehead, her raven hair, her great eyes gleaming with a dark flame in their vast orbits, and her stern lip, whose unbending curve was never softened by a smile; and, with all the rest, in the very bloom and flower of youth, with a graceful, lithe figure instinct with health.
"Who is that lovely dark girl with such a cold eye?" I asked Count Nasi, during the entr'acte; he had taken a great liking to me, and came on the stage every evening to chat with me.
"She is either the daughter or niece of Princess Grimani," was his reply. "I do not know her, for she has just come from some convent or other, and her mother, or aunt, is herself a stranger in this region. All I can tell you is that Prince Grimani loves her like his own child, that he will give her a handsome dowry, and that she is one of the richest matches in Italy; and yet I shall never take my place in the lists."