Off Sandy Hook, and other stories

by Richard Dehan

A few rehearsals later a cloud of snuff enveloped him, and he was clasped in the arms of a brown great-coat of antique design. Add, above, a gray woolen comforter and a traveling cap with ear-pieces, and, below, a pair of green trousers, ending in cloth boots with patent-leather toecaps, and you have the portrait of the Maestro in traveling costume.

“Heaven be praised, my dear Carlino, that I have lived to see this day!... Have you renewed acquaintance with my little witch, my enchanted bird, my drop of singing-water? Embrace, my children; your Maestro wishes it!”

And Gladiali touched the cheek of Emilia Betisi with his lips. Her sparkling eyes looked mockingly into his. Then the Maestro, who spoke not a word of English, scrambled to the conductor’s chair, and commenced to harangue the musicians who constituted the orchestra in a fluent conglomeration of several other languages, and the rehearsals of “Belverde” began.

The new soprano and the new opera made an instantaneous and unparalleled “hit.” Carlo helped to pick up La Betisi’s bouquets, and made a pretty speech to her at the final descent of the curtain. But his heart was not in his eyes or on his lips.

Upon the second representation, he yawned in the middle of Isolina’s great aria, and he openly sneered at the audience for encoring the song three times. In the last Act, in the Garden Scene, which offered the principal opportunity for the display of the new prima donna’s art, Carlo sucked jujubes, and openly wore one in his cheek while receiving, as Galantuomo, from the maddened Isolina the most feverish protestations of love. He noted something more than feigned frenzy in the flaming black eyes of the Betisi at this juncture, and, somewhat unwisely, permitted himself to smile. Next moment he received a deep scratch upon the cheek, which tingled for a moment, then bled copiously, obliging the tenor to sing the final Romanza with a handkerchief to his face.

“Convey to Signor Gladiali my profoundest apologies,” said the Betisi to her dresser. “He will really think that he was singing a duet with a cat! But the next performance goes better.” Her dark eyes gleamed, her red lips smiled. She thirsted for the second representation.

So did Carlo. He had thought out a few little things calculated to drive a cantatrice to the pitch of desperation. For instance, at the second encore of her great song, separated only by a duet from his great song in the First Act, he would fetch a chair and sit down. Aha!

But—whether his intention had leaked out through Rebelli, to whom in a moment of champagne he had confided it, or whether the Betisi was in league with demons, let it be decided—it was she who fetched, not a chair, but a three-legged stool, and sat down on it in the middle of his first encore. And so charming an air of patience did she assume, and so genuine seemed her pity for the deluded public who had redemanded the song, that Signor Carlo, who wore a strip of black Court plaster on one cheek, nearly had an apoplexy. He meant to eat jujubes through her great song, but the Betisi was prepared. She produced a box and offered them to him, singing all the while more brilliantly than she had ever sung before; and when the house rose at her in rapture and demanded an encore, she tripped and fetched the three-legged stool and gave it, with a triumphant curtsey, to the foaming Galantuomo. And the crowded house roared with delight.

But the punishment of Carlo came in the Second Act. In the celebrated Garden Scene, where slighted love drives Isolina into temporary madness, she not only scratched her Galantuomo on the other cheek, but pulled his wig off. And in the crowning scene, where Isolina reveals herself as the daughter of the King, and summons the Court to witness the humiliation of Galantuomo by beating on a gong which is suspended from a tree, came the Betisi’s great opportunity. Running through the most difficult passages of the arduous scena with the greatest nonchalance, disposing of octaves, double octaves, and ranging from sol to si-flat in the violin-clef with the utmost ease, she electrified and enthralled her hearers; and, in the gusto of singing, when the moment arrived for striking on the gong previously referred to, she missed the instrument, and struck the tenor violently upon the nose. The unfortunate organ attained pantomimic dimensions within the few minutes that ensued subsequently to the delivery of the blow and previous to the falling of the curtain, and I have heard was favored by the gallery with a special call.

“Alas, Signor Carlo, I know not how to express my regret!... I was carried away...” faltered the Betisi, as with secret triumph and feigned remorse she looked upon the tenor’s swollen nose.