Part 5 (2/2)
She shook her head.
”No, no, Leo, I know what I do,” she said. ”I shall never have the grand style--never--but you think I am improved? Yes. Well, now, I sing something else.”
He forgot all about her lack of a chaperon; they were fellow-students again, as in the old days at Naples, when they worked hard (and also played a little), when they comforted each other, and strove to bear with equanimity the grumbling and querulousness of that always-dissatisfied old Pandiani. Signorina Rossi now sang the Shadow Song from ”Dinorah;” then she sang the Jewel Song from ”Faust;” she sang ”Caro nome” from ”Rigoletto,” or anything else that he could suggest; and her runs and shakes and scale pa.s.sages were delivered with a freedom and precision that again and again called forth his applause.
”And you have never sung in public, Nina?” he asked.
”At one concert, yes, in Naples,” the young lady made answer. ”And at two or three _matinees_” And then she turned to him, with a bright look.
”You know this, Leo?--I am offered--no--I was offered--an engagement to sing in opera; oh, yes; it was the _impresario_ from Malta--he comes to Naples--Pandiani makes us all sing to him--then will I go to Malta, to the opera there? No!”
”Why not, Nina? Surely that was a good opening,” he said.
She turned away from him again, and her fingers wandered lightly over the keys of the piano.
”I always say to me, 'Some day I am in England; the English give much money at concerts; perhaps that is better.'”
”So you've come over to England to get a series of concert-room engagements; is that it, Nina?”
She shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly.
”Perhaps. One must wait and see. It is not my ambition. No. The light opera, that is--popular?--is it right?”
”Yes, yes.”
”It is very popular in England,” said the young Italian lady, with her eyes coming back from the music-sheets to seek those of her friend.”
Well, Leo, if I take a small part to begin, have I voice sufficient?
What do you think? No; be frank; say to yourself, 'I am Pandiani; here is Antonia Rossi troubling me once more; it is useless; go away, Antonia Rossi, and not trouble me!' Well, Maestro Pandiani, what you say?”
”So you want to go on the stage, Nina?” said he; and again the dread of finding himself responsible for this solitary young stranger sent a qualm to his heart. It was an embarra.s.sing position altogether; but at the same time the thought of shaking her off--of getting free from this responsibility by telling a white lie or two and persuading her to go back to Naples--that thought never even occurred to him. To shake off his old comrade Nina? He certainly would have preferred, for many reasons, that she should have taken to concert-room business; but if she were relying on him for an introduction to the lyric stage, why, he was bound to help her in every possible way. ”You know you've got an excellent voice,” he continued. ”And a very little stage training would fit you for a small part in comedy-opera, if that is what you're thinking of, as a beginning. But I don't know that you would like it, Nina. You see, you would have to become under-study for the lady who has the part at present; and they'd probably want you to sing in the chorus; and you'd get a very small salary--at first, you know, until you were qualified to take one of the more important parts--and then you might get into a travelling company--”
”A small part?” said she, with much cheerfulness. ”Oh, yes; why not? I must learn.”
”But I don't know that you would like it,” he said, still ruefully. ”You see, Nina, you might have to dress in the same room with two or three of the chorus-girls--”
”And then?” she said, with a little dramatic gesture, and an elevation of her beautifully formed black eyebrows. ”Leo, you never saw my lodgings with the family Debernardi--you have only mount the stairs--”
”My goodness, Nina, I could guess what the inside of the rooms was like, if they were anything like those interminable and horrid stairs!” he exclaimed, with a laugh. ”And you who were always so fond of pretty things, and flowers, and always so particular when we went to a restaurant--to live with the Debernardis!”
”Ah, Leo, you imagine not why?” she said, also laughing, and when she laughed her milk-white teeth shone merrily. ”Old Pietro Debernardi he lives in England some years; he speaks English, perhaps not very well, but he speaks; then he teach me as he knows; and when it is possible I go on the _Risposta_ and sail over to Capri, and all the way, and all the return, I listen, and listen, and listen to the English people; and I remember, and I practise alone in my own room, and I say, 'Leo, he must not ridicule me, when I go to England.'”
”Ridicule you!” said he, indignantly. ”I wish I could speak Italian as freely as you speak English, Nina!”
”Oh, you speak Italian very well,” said she. ”But why you speak still the Neapolitan dialetto--dialect, is it right?--that you hear in the shops and the streets? Ah, I remember you are so proud of it, and when I try to teach you proper Italian, you laugh--you wish to speak like Sabetta Debernardi, and Giacomo, and the others. That is the fault to learn by ear, instead of the books correctly. And you have not forgotten yet!”
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