"Why not, pray?"
"Because they say she is insolent and vain, infatuated with her noble birth, and of an overbearing disposition. I care so little for women of that stamp that I don't even care to look at her when I meet her. They say that she will be queen of the balls next winter, and that her beauty is something marvellous. I don't know or want to know whether it is or is not. I can't endure Grimani either; he is a genuine stage hidalgo; and if it were not that he has a handsome fortune and a young wife who is said to be attractive, I don't know how anyone could be induced to endure the tedium of his conversation or the freezing stiffness of his hospitality."
During the following scene I glanced at the proscenium box from time to time. I was no longer disturbed by the thought that its occupants were disposed to judge me unfavorably, since I had learned that the Grimanis were accustomed to maintain a haughty demeanor even with people whom they considered to belong to their own class. I looked at the girl with the impartiality of a sculptor or a painter; she seemed to me even lovelier than at first sight. Old Grimani, who was sitting beside her at the front of the box, had a fine face, but stern and cold. That supercilious couple seemed to exchange a few monosyllables at long intervals, and at the end of the opera he rose slowly and went out, without waiting for the ballet.
The next day the old man and the young woman were in the same place, in the same unmoved attitude. I did not once see any trace of emotion, and Prince Grimani slept sweetly throughout the first acts. The young woman, on the contrary, seemed to be paying her whole attention to the performance. Her great eyes were fastened on me like those of a ghost, and that fixed, searching and profound gaze became so embarrassing to me that I carefully avoided it. But, as if an evil spell had been cast upon me, the more I tried to keep my eyes away, the more they persisted in meeting those of the young sorceress. There was something so extraordinarily powerful in that mysterious magnetism, that I was assailed by childish dread of it, and feared that I should not be able to finish the opera. I had never felt anything like it. There were times when I fancied that I recognized that marble face, and I seemed to be on the point of accosting her as an old friend. At other times I believed that she was my deadly enemy, my evil genius, and I was tempted to hurl violent reproaches at her.
The seconda donna added to my truly alarming discomfort by whispering to me:
"Look out, Lelio, you'll catch the fever. That woman in the box will give you the jettatura."[6]
I had been a firm believer in the jettatura during the greater part of my life. I no longer believed in it; but the love of the marvellous, which is not easily dislodged from an Italian head, especially that of a child of the people, had led me to indulge in most extravagant reflections on the subject of animal magnetism. It was the period when charming fancies of that sort were blooming luxuriantly all over the world; Hoffmann was writing his Tales, and magnetism was the mysterious pivot upon which all the hopes of the illuminati turned. Whether because that foible had taken such complete possession of me that it controlled my actions, or because it took me by surprise at a moment when I was not in the best of health, I began to shiver from head to foot, and I nearly fainted when I returned to the stage. That wretched weakness finally gave place to wrath, and as I walked toward the box in question with La Checchina—the seconda donna who had mentioned the evil eye—I said to her, indicating my fair enemy, but in a tone too low to be overheard by the audience, these words paraphrased from one of our finest tragedies:
"Bella e stupida."
The signora flushed to the roots of her hair with anger. She started to rouse Prince Grimani, who was sleeping with all his heart; but she suddenly stopped, as if she had changed her mind, and kept her eyes fixed upon me as before, but with a vindictive, threatening expression which seemed to say:
"You shall repent of that."