She was a strange but most excellent creature, was Checchina; she had improved wonderfully since I had picked her out of the gutter, so to speak; but she still retained, and retains to this day, a certain rusticity which does not altogether disappear on the stage, and which makes her the first actress in the world in such rôles as Zerlina. She had corrected in large measure the amplitude of her gestures and the abruptness of her speech, but she retained enough of both to come very near being comic in pathetic parts. However, as she had intelligence and feeling, she raised herself to a relatively high position, but the public did not give her all the credit she deserved. Opinions were divided concerning her, and a certain abbé said that she brushed so close to the sublime and the farcical that there was not enough room left between the two for her long arms.
Unluckily, Checchina had one failing, from which, by the way, the greatest artists are not exempt. She satisfied herself only in rôles which were entirely unsuited to her, and, scorning those in which she could best display her verve, her unconstant and her restless activity, she insisted upon producing great effects in tragedy. Like a true village maiden, she was intoxicated by superb costumes, and fancied that she was really a queen when she wore a diadem and a royal cloak. Her tall, lithe figure, her graceful, quasi-martial bearing, made of her a magnificent statue when she was not in motion. But her exaggerated gestures constantly betrayed the young oarswoman, and when I desired, on the stage, to warn her to be less vehement, I would whisper: "Per dio! non vogar! non siamo qui sull' Adriatico."[7]
Whether Checchina was my mistress is a question of little interest to you, I presume. I can only assure you that she was not at the time of which I am speaking, and that I was indebted for her affectionate care to nothing else than the kindness of her heart and her unfailing gratitude. She has always been a devoted sister and friend to me, and many a time she has risked a rupture with her most brilliant lovers, rather than desert me or neglect me when my health or my interests demanded her zealous care or her aid.
As I was saying, she took up her post at my bedside, and did not leave me until she had cured me. Her tireless devotion to me vexed Count Nasi somewhat, although he was my friend and placed full confidence in my word; but he himself confessed to me what he called his miserable weakness. When I urged Checchina to deal more gently with that excellent young man's involuntary sensitiveness, she would say:
"Nonsense! Don't you see that I must train him to respect my independence? Do you suppose that, when I am his wife, I will consent to abandon my stage friends and worry about what people in society think of me? Don't believe it, Lelio. I propose to remain free, and to obey the voice of my heart and nothing else."
She had persuaded herself, with none too good reason, that the count was fully determined to marry her; and I may say that she possessed, to a marvellous degree, the gift of deluding herself with respect to the violence of the passions she inspired; nothing could equal her confidence in a promise, unless it were her philosophical and heroic indifference when she was deceived.
I suffered considerably; my disease came very near assuming a serious character. The doctors found a very pronounced tendency to enlargement of the heart, and the very sharp pains which I felt about that organ and the excessive rush of blood thither necessitated numerous bleedings. So that I lost the rest of that season, and, as soon as I was convalescent, I went for rest and balmy air to a beautiful villa of Count Nasi's, a few leagues from Florence, near Cafaggiolo, at the foot of the Apennines. He promised to join me there with Checchina as soon as the performances for which she was engaged would allow her to leave Naples.
A few days of that delightful solitude benefited me so much that I was allowed to take excursions of some length, sometimes in the saddle, sometimes on foot, through the narrow gorges and picturesque ravines which form a first step to the towering masses of the Apennines. In my musing I called that region the proscenium of the great range, and I loved to seek out some amphitheatre of hills or some natural terrace where, all alone and far from every eye, I could indulge in outbursts of lyric declamation, which were answered by the resonant echoes or the mysterious murmur of the streams flowing under the rocks.
One day I unexpectedly found myself on the Florence road. Like a glistening white ribbon it ran through a verdant, gently undulating country, strewn with beautiful gardens, wooded parks and handsome villas. Seeking to learn my whereabouts, I stopped at the gate of one of those charming abodes. The gate was open, and I could see an avenue of old trees mysteriously intertwined. Beneath those dark, voluptuously enlaced branches a woman was walking slowly—a woman of slender form and a bearing so noble that I paused to gaze at her and follow her with my eyes as long as possible. As she showed no inclination to turn, I was seized with an irresistible longing to see her features, and I yielded to it, heedless of the fact that I was violating the proprieties, and might be subjected to a humiliating rebuff.
"Who can say," I said to myself, "women are so indulgent sometimes in this mild climate of ours!"