rise; Fate, or man, is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she
presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She
weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable,
victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's
little red box and stifle my emotion, whilst I repeat in my heart: 'What
a shame, child, what a shame!' She is twice my age, but what is age in
such circumstances? 'Your poor little hanky, it's sopping. There, then,
don't cry. It'll be all right. _I'll_ see you're all right. _All_ men
are not beasts, you know.' So I cover her protectively in my arms, and
soon I shall be kissing her, for comfort, in the heat and prowess of my
compassion, kissing her soft, plump cheek and neck closely, bringing my
comfort nearer and nearer.
It is a pleasant and exciting role for me to play. Robert Burns did the
part to perfection:
O wert thou in the cauld blast
On yonder lea, on yonder lea.
How many times does one recite that to all the Ophelias and Gretchens in
the world:
Thy bield should be my bosom.
How one admires one's bosom in that capacity! Looking down at one's
shirt-front, one is filled with strength and pride.
Why are the women so bad at playing this part in real life, this
Ophelia-Gretchen role? Why are they so unwilling to go mad and die for
our sakes? They do it regularly on the stage.
But perhaps, after all, we write the plays. What a villain I am, what a
black-browed, passionate, ruthless, masculine villain I am to the
leading lady on the stage; and, on the other hand, dear heart, what a
hero, what a fount of chivalrous generosity and faith! I am _anything_
but a dull and law-abiding citizen. I am a Galahad, full of purity and
spirituality, I am the Lancelot of valour and lust; I fold my hands, or
I cock my hat in one side, as the case may be: I am _myself_. Only, I am
not a respectable citizen, not that, in this hour of my glory and
my escape.
Dear Heaven, how Adelaida wept, her voice plashing like violin music, at
my ruthless, masculine cruelty. Dear heart, how she sighed to rest on my
sheltering bosom! And how I enjoyed my dual nature! How I
admired myself!
Adelaida chose _La Moglie del Dottore_ for her Evening of Honour. During
the following week came a little storm of coloured bills: 'Great Evening
of Honour of Enrico Persevalli.'
This is the leader, the actor-manager. What should he choose for his
great occasion, this broad, thick-set, ruddy descendant of the peasant
proprietors of the plain? No one knew. The title of the play was
not revealed.
So we were staying at home, it was cold and wet. But the maestra came
inflammably on that Thursday evening, and were we not going to the
theatre, to see _Amleto_?
Poor maestra, she is yellow and bitter-skinned, near fifty, but her dark
eyes are still corrosively inflammable. She was engaged to a lieutenant
in the cavalry, who got drowned when she was twenty-one. Since then she
has hung on the tree unripe, growing yellow and bitter-skinned, never
developing.
'_Amleto!_' I say. '_Non lo conosco._'
A certain fear comes into her eyes. She is schoolmistress, and has a
mortal dread of being wrong.
'_Si_,' she cries, wavering, appealing, '_una dramma inglese_.'
'English!' I repeated.
'Yes, an English drama.'
'How do you write it?'
Anxiously, she gets a pencil from her reticule, and, with black-gloved
scrupulousness, writes _Amleto_.
'_Hamlet_!' I exclaim wonderingly.
'_Ecco, Amleto!_' cries the maestra, her eyes aflame with thankful
justification.
Then I knew that Signore Enrico Persevalli was looking to me for an
audience. His Evening of Honour would be a bitter occasion to him if the
English were not there to see his performance.
I hurried to get ready, I ran through the rain. I knew he would take it
badly that it rained on his Evening of Honour. He counted himself a man
who had fate against him.
'_Sono un disgraziato, io._'
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