BELLINI.
Delightful Naples, rich in vineyards and orange-trees, with her splendid sky and enchanting sea, in which the city mirrors itself, and ever rejoices and sings, recalls to my mind the beautiful school of Italian melody of Scarlatti, Pergolesi, and Bellini. Bellini, a name beloved and venerated by all who value beautiful melody—whose song is so passionate and graceful, expressing in its suave sweetness passion and love, rage and remorse, and creating dramatic situations from the very notes themselves, more than from the words; Bellini, a master without pedantry or artifice, clear without being common, profound without being abstruse, and really of the future (because I believe that both thought and ears will soon be tired of being obliged to listen too attentively to catch, here and there, rari nantes in gurgite vasto some half phrase obscure and slegato);—Bellini, I say, who is indeed a great man, is soon to have a monument erected to him. This monument was to have been made by me, and God only knows how willingly I would have worked to have made a statue of that graceful and strong genius! That work, however, has fallen into excellent hands; for Giulio Monteverde, whom I love and esteem, is to be the fortunate artist.
But if I am glad that this important and most sympathetic work has fallen into good hands, I am none the less sorry not to have it to do myself, the more so that the way it was taken from me seems inexplicably strange. This is how it was. Some years back I had a commission from Marchese del Toscano, of Catania, to make the bust of the Maestro Pacini. At that time I was also asked by the same Marchese, who was then syndic of the town, if I would be willing to make a great monument to Bellini, that the city and province proposed to put up to their great fellow-townsman. Naturally I met such a request with pleasure, although it was accompanied by considerations of economy that, whilst they were not in the least to diminish the grandioseness of the monument, in view of the place where it was to be erected, and the dignity of the subject, led him to suppose (and in this the worthy gentleman was not mistaken) that the artist would have to be discreet in his demands, so as to facilitate the work of the organising committee. I answered as a disinterested artist who was desirous of doing the work should. "Tell me the sum at your disposal, indicate the size of the place where you wish to erect the monument, and I shall make you a sketch for it which, I hope, will give you satisfaction; for I shall not look in the least to my interest, as this great man is so dear to me, and I highly approve the idea you have had of doing him honour."
THE MONUMENT TO BELLINI.
In the meanwhile things proceeded very slowly; the sums of money collected were not sufficient to make the monument of the proposed size, and to this effect they wrote me after some time had passed; when at last, one fine day, a letter arrived from the secretary of the municipality, saying that the sum had been collected for the Bellini monument, that the municipality intended at once to have the work begun, and that, with this object in view, the syndic would soon forward the order of the commission to me. Naturally, I looked for the letter from the syndic, which did not keep me long waiting; but I leave it to the reader to judge of.
The Marchese del Toscano was at that time no longer syndic of Catania, and in his stead there was another, whose name I do not remember; for I have the good fortune to forget the names of those who treat me badly, and so bear them no resentment. I say this merely for the sake of truth, that no one may suppose me possessed of a virtue that I have not. I have read somewhere, but I do not remember where, that the person offended engraves in porphyry the name of the offender, and the nature of the offence; whilst on the other side it is but traced in the sand, that the slightest breath of wind cancels. This may be true; but as regards me, I must confess candidly that the very reverse occurs: and I thank God for it, and so live on most happily, and my blood gains in colour and vitality every day that I grow older.
MONTEVERDE.
Here is the sense, if not the very text, of the Signor Sindaco's letter: "It is some days since my secretary wrote to you, to ask if you would accept the order for Bellini's monument for this city. It must be finished in eighteen months. Answer at once, for I have no time to lose, and otherwise we shall appeal to Monteverde." One cannot deny that this epistolary style is of an enviable brevity and clearness. I answered that I had received the letter from the secretary, but as he had announced to me that the syndic himself would write, I had waited for this letter so as not to have to answer both, because I also had no time to lose. I said that I could not accept under such close conditions, and with such limited time; and as to appealing to Monteverde, he did well, as he was a most talented artist, but I doubted whether even he could accept for the same reason—want of time. Monteverde was given five years' time, and the price increased not a little from what was proposed to me. My best wishes to the artist are that he may be well inspired and make an excellent work; that the good Catanese may have reason to be satisfied with their way of proceeding; and that the monument to Vincenzo Bellini may in its lines recall the passionate phrases of melody of the divine master.
THE END OF MY MEMOIRS.
Here my memoirs come to an end. Those who have followed me with open trusting minds, know me as if they had been with me from a child. They know my humble origin; they remember my early years when I wandered here and there with my father in search of work he found little of, and that with difficulty; my attempts to study, to satisfy an inward yearning that I knew not how to appease; the difficulties in my position of satisfying that craving; the efforts that I made to content it, and the dangers to which a quick nature abandoned to itself is exposed. They have learnt how I chose for my companion a young girl as judicious and good as she was gentle and beautiful, who was my providence and my angel, the educator of the family, and an example of temperateness, patience, and faith to me (who am so intolerant and easily angered), and whose loss I feel even more heavily to-day, when I think that by God's mercy I could now have made her life more peaceful and easy.