It was during our sojourn at Genoa that King William IV. bestowed on my father the Guelphic and Hanoverian Order, which his Majesty was very fond of dispensing. When the news of the decoration reached Genoa, we received visits of congratulation from all our friends, and at the same time letters and notes offering sympathy to my mother upon what was considered a very questionable elevation.
How grieved I was when the time came to leave beautiful Genoa! The Carnival had been so enjoyable, the fun so “fast and furious,” and the opera season so delightful. We had been almost every night to the theatre, having a box placed at our disposal by one or other of our Genoese friends. Visits were paid from one box to another by all the gentlemen of our acquaintance, and the society thus enjoyed was on an easy and agreeable footing. The prima donna at the time I am speaking of was, strange as it may appear, a German by birth, and Madame Ungher was, in my opinion, the finest actress I have ever seen, scarcely excepting Rachel or Ristori. She was not remarkable for beauty, but had a noble presence, was graceful in her movements, and her singing was replete with expression, dignity and pathos. In the opera of the Pirata, I shall never forget the scene in which she implores her child to intercede with his father in her behalf. I was forcibly reminded of this incident the other day, in witnessing Miss Mary Anderson’s beautiful impersonation of Hermione in the Winter’s Tale, and the touching dialogue between her and the little Prince, when she showed the same tenderness, the same winning grace, but enhanced by an extreme loveliness with which Madame Ungher was not endowed.
“BALLETS D’ACTION”
At that period ballets d’action were in great repute. They generally occurred between the middle acts of the opera and were, as I considered, an unreasonable interruption, in every sense of the word. Besides, I wearied of the constant repetition of the same insipid pantomime; and the invariable story of the “Two Rivals” was commonplace in the highest degree.
One evening I turned to a gentleman who sat beside me, and expressed my impatience, finding fault in rather an irritable tone with the prima ballerina for killing herself, and, “Why does she not rather kill her rival?” I asked of him.
My companion was a matter-of-fact personage, and after gazing at me for some time with an expression of disapprobation: “Comment, Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed, “sous une chevelure ainsi blonde vous cachez des passions ainsi violentes?” I have often thought that we blondes labour under a great responsibility, as we are generally supposed (in fiction at least) to be mild and virtuous, calm and placable.
I can recall most vividly an amusing evening spent at the Veglione. My eldest brother tried to persuade us to go to the masquerade that night, but we (my mother, my sister and myself) were very deceitful, complained of sleepiness and disinclination for the task to which he was looking forward. In the meantime we had surreptitiously made assignations with three of our friends to meet us at the door of the theatre and be our escort for the night. Our hotel was situated on the port, and we had, therefore, to pass through several of the narrow streets en route for San Carlo, which could only be traversed by sedan chairs.
During the many years I have passed in Italy, I have never seen above three instances of drunkenness in the streets, but this evening I was unfortunate. My chair swayed about from side to side, as if I were in a steamboat, and at last came to a dead stop, and our faithful servant Henry, who was walking by my side, lifting up the top and opening the door, informed me of the reason, while turning to the chairmen he heaped upon them in his very best Italian a storm of indignant invectives, at the same time sending back the more sober of the two to the hotel, to summon another pair of bearers. Issuing from the sedan, in all the splendour and magnificence of a Turkish Sultana with an entire mask, I began to add my indignant rebukes to those of Henry, when the ludicrousness of the position came home so forcibly to me that I stopped in my harangue. Glittering with gold and silver and false jewels, and of the commanding stature of five foot nothing, I must have greatly impressed those guilty men. Remembering, however, that my “paper face,” as the Italians call an entire mask, was expressive of inane good humour and the blandest of smiles, I came down from my pinnacle of sublime virtue, and retreated into my chair until the appearance of my new bearers. Arrived at the theatre, and joined by our cavaliers, we mixed in the motley throng on mischief bent.
A MASQUERADE
My companion, being one of the leaders of society, who knew all about everybody and everything in that society, was of the greatest use in prompting my sallies and in enlightening me when I was at a loss.