Читать книгу Tales of My Native Town - Gabriele D'Annunzio - Страница 13

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A few days after, Violetta Kutufa was inhabiting an apartment in one of Don Giovanni’s houses on the town square, and much hearsay floated through Pescara. The company of singers departed from Brindisi without the Countess of Amalfi. In the solemn, quiet Lenten days, the Pescaresi took a modest delight in gossip and calumny. Every day a new tale made the circuit of the city, and every day a new creation arose from the popular imagination.

Violetta Kutufa’s house was in the neighbourhood of Sant’ Agostino, opposite the Brina palace and adjoining the palace of Memma. Every evening the windows were illuminated and the curious assembled beneath them.

Violetta received visitors in a room tapestried with French fabrics on which were depicted in French style various mythological subjects. Two round-bodied vases of the seventeenth century occupied the two sides of the chimney-piece. A yellow sofa extended along the opposite wall between two curtains of similar material. On the chimney-piece stood a plaster Venus and a small Venus di Medici between two gilt candelabra. On the shelves rested various porcelain vases, a bunch of artificial flowers under a crystal globe, a basket of wax fruit, a Swiss cottage, a block of alum, several sea-shells and a cocoanut.

At first her guests had been reluctant, through a sense of modesty, to mount the stairs of the opera singer. Later, little by little, they had overcome all hesitation. Even the most serious men made from time to time their appearance in the salon of Violetta Kutufa; even men of family; and they went there almost with trepidation, with furtive delight, as if they were about to commit a slight crime against their wives, as if they were about to enter a place of soothing perdition and sin. They united in twos and threes, formed alliances for greater security and justification, laughed among themselves and nudged one another in turn for encouragement. Then the stream of light from the windows, the strains from the piano, the song of the Countess of Amalfi, the voices and applause of her guests excited them. They were seized with a sudden enthusiasm, threw out their chests, held up their heads with youthful pride and mounted resolutely, deciding that after all one had to taste of life and cull opportunities for enjoyment.

But Violetta’s receptions had an air of great propriety, were almost formal. She welcomed the new arrivals with courtesy and offered them syrups in water and cordials. The newcomers remained slightly astonished, did not know quite how to behave, where to sit, what to say. The conversations turned upon the weather, on political news, on the substance of the Lenten sermons, on other matter-of-fact and tedious topics.

Don Giuseppe Postiglioni spoke of the pretensions of the Prussian Prince Hohenzollern to the throne of Spain; Don Antonio Brattella delighted in discoursing on the immortality of the soul and other inspiring matters. The doctrine of Brattella was stupendous. He spoke slowly and emphatically, from time to time, pronouncing a difficult word rapidly and eating up the syllables. To quote an authentic report, one evening, on taking a wand and bending it, he said: “Oh, how fleible!” for flexible; another evening, pointing to his plate and making excuses for not being able to play the flute, he vouchsafed: “My entire p-l-ate is inflamed!” and still another evening, on indicating the shape of a vase, he said that in order to make children take medicine, it was necessary to scatter with some sweet substance the origin of the glass.

At intervals Don Paolo Seccia, incredulous soul, on hearing singular matters recounted, jumped up with: “But Don Antò, what do you mean to say?”

Don Antonio repeated his remark with a hand on his heart and a challenging expression, “My testimony is ocular! Entirely ocular.” One evening he came, walking with great effort and carefully, painstakingly prepared to sit down; he had “a cold, the length of the spine!” Another evening he arrived with the right cheek slightly bruised; he had fallen “underhand”; in other words, he had slipped and struck his face on the ground. Thus were the conversations of these gatherings made up. Don Giovanni Ussorio, always present, had the airs of a proprietor; every so often he approached Violetta with ostentation and murmured something familiarly in her ear. Long intervals of silence occurred, during which Don Grisostomo Troilo blew his nose and Don Federico Sicoli coughed like a consumptive, holding both hands to his mouth and then shaking them.

The opera-singer revived the conversation with accounts of her triumphs at Corfu, Ancona and Bari. Little by little she grew animated, abandoned herself to her imagination; with discreet reserve she spoke of princely “amours,” of royal favours, of romantic adventures; she thus evoked all of those confused recollections of novels read at other times, and trusted liberally to the credulity of her listeners. Don Giovanni at these times turned his eyes upon her full of inquietude, almost bewildered; moreover experiencing a singular irritation that had an indistinct resemblance to jealousy. Violetta at length ended with a stupid smile and the conversation languished anew.

Then Violetta went to the piano and sang. All listened with profound attention; at the end they applauded. Then Don Brattella arose with the flute. An immeasurable melancholy took hold of his listeners at that sound, a kind of swooning of body and soul. They rested with heads lowered almost to their breasts in attitudes of sufferance. At last all left, one after the other. As they took the hand of Violetta a slight scent from the strong perfume of musk remained on their fingers, and this excited them further. Then, once more in the street, they reunited in groups, holding loose discourse. They grew inflamed, lowered their voices and were silent if anyone drew near. Softly they withdrew from beneath the Brina palace to another part of the square. There they set themselves to watching Violetta’s windows, still illuminated. Across the panes passed indistinct shadows; at a certain time the light disappeared, traversed two or three rooms and stopped in the last window. Shortly, a figure leaned out to close the shutters. Those spying thought they recognised in it the figure of Don Giovanni. They still continued to discuss beneath the stars and from time to time laughed, while giving one another little nudges, and gesticulating. Don Antonio Brattella, perhaps from the reflection of the city-lamps, seemed a greenish colour. The parasites, little by little in their discourse spit out a certain animosity toward the opera-singer, who was plucking so gracefully their lord of good times. They feared lest those generous feasts might be in peril; already Don Giovanni was more sparing of his invitations.

“It will be necessary to open the eyes of the poor fellow. An adventuress! Bah! She is capable of making him marry her. Why not? And then what a scandal!”

Don Pompeo Nervi, shaking his large calf’s head, assented:

“You are right! You are right! We must bethink ourselves.”

Don Nereo Pica, “The Cat,” proposed a way, conjured up schemes; this pious man, accustomed to the secret and laborious skirmishes of the sacristy was crafty in the sowing of discord.

Thus these complainers treated together and their fat speeches only returned again into their bitter mouths. As it was spring the foliage of the public gardens smelt and trembled before them with white blossoms and through the neighbouring paths they saw, about to disappear, the figures of loosely-dressed prostitutes.