Round the Block Part 36

Touching the merits of "color" and "breadth" there might be some grounds of doubt, but none whatever concerning its "length."

It lasted until twenty minutes of nine; and, toward the close, faint sc.r.a.pings of dissatisfaction were heard, which would have been more audible had Signor Mancussi not been present. As the last tw.a.n.g of the fiddle died on the air, M. Bartin was heard by several persons to say, "Bah! a bad hash from Rossini and Auber." The remark was reported to Signor Mancussi, and did not tend to enhance his friendly regards for the other gentleman.

CHAPTER II.

CURTAIN UP.

At eight and three quarters P.M. the curtain was rung up, and discovered a rustic scene, in the midst of which Mrs. Slapman (Fidelia) was seated.

She was dressed in a white frock with low neck, and a flat hat, and was trimmed out with red ribbons in all directions. She looked young and pretty. Only an anxious knitting of her eyebrows revealed the cares and troubles of intellect. Mrs. Slapman was applauded by a unanimous clapping of hands. She was seated in a red-velvet rocking chair, at a small but costly table, on which stood an expensive vase filled with flowers. These properties, though few, were intended to signify boundless affluence and luxury. Fidelia languidly waved a jewelled fan, and sighed. "Will he never come?" said she.

She had hardly made this remark, when, by a singular coincidence, Alberto (Overtop) entered from the left wing, and threw himself, with as much grace as his tights would permit, at her feet. She emitted a small shriek, and gave him her hand to kiss, which he did with ecstasy.

Alberto was habited like an Italian gentleman in good circ.u.mstances; and no one would have suspected his poverty, if he had not commenced the dialogue by an affecting allusion to his last _scudi_, which brought tears to the eyes of the fair Fidelia.

Such trifling questions as lovers alone can ask and answer then pa.s.sed between them; and at last came the solemn interrogatory from the kneeling Alberto: "And will you always love me, dearest?"

Fidelia turned her meek orbs toward the ceiling, raised her hand, said "_Forever!_" and was about to add, "I swear," when Bidette (Miss Wick) rushed upon the scene with the intelligence, "He comes."

"Who?" asked Alberto.

"My father!" shrieked Fidelia. "Go--that way." She pointed with her small alabaster hand to the left wing.

Alberto vanished as per request, while Fidelia, with well-affected calmness, commenced humming an opera air, and fanning herself. Bidette, the favorite maid, pretended to readjust a flower in her mistress's hair. These feminine artifices were to throw the coming father off his scent.

But the father (Mr. Johnsone, the junior of a small book-publis.h.i.+ng house) was sharp eyed, though he lacked spectacles. As he emerged from the right wing, he caught a distinct view of a pair of soles disappearing in the distance, and benignantly asked: "Who is that, my child?"

The child answered: "Only the postman, pa."

"Where is the letter?" he asked.

"Please, sir," interrupted Bidette, observing her mistress's confusion, "there wasn't no letter. He mistook the house for another, sir."

The father nodded his head to express his complete satisfaction with this explanation, and then told Bidette to leave the spot, as he had something of the utmost importance to tell his daughter. Bidette pouted, and withdrew, giving a bewitching shake of her striped calico dress, to signify her hatred of brutal fathers. This touch of nature drew plaudits from those among the audience who were but slightly acquainted with Miss Wick. The others looked on with critical indifference.

The father took a chair, thrust out his legs like a reigning prince, and proceeded, in a story of unnecessary length, to tell his daughter that he owed one hundred and seventy thousand florins to Signor Rodicaso, and would be a ruined man in forty-eight hours if that sum were not paid.

Life, in that event, would be simply insupportable. He had procured a pistol to blow out his brains, but had subsequently concluded to make one more effort to save himself. He would, therefore, appeal to his daughter, _as_ a father, and ask her to marry Signor Rodicaso, and so liquidate the debt, to-morrow. He did not wish to influence her choice--far from it--but, if she did not consent, he should feel under the painful necessity of shooting himself on the spot.

The father produced a pistol, and held it to his left ear.

Fidelia, looking like a marble statue of grief, said, in a low but perfectly audible voice: "Stay! I will wed him." This was enunciated with the calmness of despair. Not a gesture, nor a twinge of the features, nor an accent to indicate emotion of any kind. It was in quiet efforts like these that Mrs. Slapman excelled.

When the applause elicited by this stroke of genius had ceased, Mr.

Chickson (Signor Rodicaso) came rather awkwardly upon the stage. His eyes (and, it might be added, his legs) rolled absently about, as if he were endeavoring to recall his part, or were in the inward act of composing a poem.

"Your future husband, Fidelia," said the father.

Fidelia rose from her seat--still imperturbable.

Chickson advanced with a sliding motion, and then paused, as if he had forgotten what to do. Mrs. Slapman was heard to whisper something (probably the cue), but he only rolled his eyes heavily in response. A look of displeasure marred her serene features, and, instead of fainting away in Signor Rodicaso's arms, as she should have done, she dropped into the embrace of her father, taking that personage quite unexpectedly, and nearly knocking him off his chair.

Chickson projected himself forward at the same time to catch her, and, in so doing, lost his balance, and just escaped, by an effort, from sprawling on the floor.

Then he looked helplessly at the audience; and there was no longer any doubt entertained that Chickson was slightly intoxicated. Getting drunk, now and then, was an infirmity of Chickson's genius.

The stage manager had the good sense to ring down the curtain on this painful scene, and, the next moment, there was a dull sound, as of somebody falling on the floor behind the green baize.

After an interval of fifteen minutes--protracted by the "unexpected indisposition" of the poet, and the consequent necessity of intrusting Signor Rodicaso to other hands--the curtain rises again, and discloses Alberto in a humble cot, surrounded by three-legged stools, and other evidences of extreme poverty. He is seated on a rickety table (in preference to the greater uncertainty of the stools), his arms are folded, and his head droops upon his breast.

In this att.i.tude, he begins to soliloquize, and informs the audience (what they did not know before) that, from a clump of shrubbery, he had seen fully as much as they of the preceding scene. He does not blame Fidelia. Oh! no. In her cruel dilemma, she could do no less. But he curses--and curses again--and continues to curse for some time--that Fate which deprives him of the "paltry means" (one hundred and seventy thousand florins) to buy off the "heartless monster" (Rodicaso). Having wreaked himself upon Destiny to his own satisfaction, he suddenly remembers that he has not eaten anything for thirty-six hours. He feels in all his pockets successively, but finds nothing. He then draws from his bosom a portrait of his father, set with antique gems. He gazes upon it reverently, kisses it, and says: "Shall I part with this sacred memento for vulgar bread? Never! Let me die!" He restores the portrait to his bosom, folds his arms again, inclines his head, and shuts his eyes, as if preparing to expire comfortably.

All this time, a fat red face, belonging to a corpulent body, has been watching the depressed lover from the right wing. As Alberto utters the last sad e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, a thick hand attached to a short arm raises a kerchief to a pair of small eyes in this fat red face, and wipes them.

Then the stout gentleman reflects a moment, nods his head approvingly, draws forth a wallet, opens it slowly, takes out some paper that rustles like bank notes, produces a memorandum book, writes a few lines on one of the leaves hastily with a pencil, tears out the leaf, encloses the leaf and the bank notes in an envelope, emerges with his entire figure into the full light of the stage, walks stealthily toward Alberto with a pair of creaking shoes that would have waked the soundest sleeper, places the note on the table by his side, raises his hands to heaven, murmuring, "G.o.d bless the boy!" and retires in the same feline but tumultuous manner.

This mysterious visitor was Bignolio (Matthew Maltboy), a rich money lender, uncle of Alberto, and commonly reported to be the "tightest old skinflint in Venice."

After a pause, scarcely long enough to allow his uncle's heavy footsteps to die away in the distance, Alberto came out of his revery. His first act was to look at the ceiling, then at the floor, then all about him--everywhere but at the note on the table. At last, when nothing else remained to be scrutinized, his eyes naturally fell upon this valuable communication.

"What is this?" he asked. Then he answered his own question by opening the letter, and reading it, as follows:

Venice, Oct. 16,----.

Dear Nephew:

I have watched you, and know all. You are indeed the son of your father, and, I am proud to add, the nephew of your uncle. Enclosed are sixty thousand florins. Go to Jinkerini Bros., on the Rialto, and buy up judgments that they hold against Rodicaso for three times that amount, and offset them against old Corpetto's debts. Rodicaso conceals his property so well, that none has ever been found to satisfy these judgments. Drive a sharp bargain, and show yourself a chip of the old block. Keep the balance for your wedding gift.

Farewell--till we meet again.

Bignolio.

"Dear, dear uncle!" exclaimed Alberto, carefully b.u.t.toning up his pocket over the funds, and kissing the letter in transports of joy. "And only yesterday he would not lend me a _scudi_ to get my dinner. Generous man!

how have I wronged him! Now, Fate, I will floor thee and Rodicaso together."

[Exit Alberto, rapidly, by shortest land route to the Rialto.]

Overtop's acting, throughout this difficult scene, was of a superior order. Nothing could be more natural, for instance, than the b.u.t.toning up of his pocket over his uncle's gift. But neither that, nor the other strong point, where he exulted in the finest tragedy tones over the antic.i.p.ated downfall of Fate and Rodicaso, produced the slightest sensation among his hearers. Matthew Maltboy paid the penalty of his intimate relations with Overtop, by an equal unpopularity. His fine rendition of the character of Bignolio might as well have been played to a select company of gravestones.

There was a necessary interval of twenty minutes for the fitting out of the stage--during which time the amateur orchestra performed selections from "Semiramide," but, happily, not loud enough to interfere with the easy flow of conversation all over the room. The second flutist, while looking over his shoulder angrily at the garrulous audience, executed a false note, which almost threw the first (and only) violinist into fits.

In turning round to rebuke the errant performer, the violinist struck his elbow against a similar projection of the other flutist, and knocked a false note out of that gentleman too, besides momentarily ruffling his temper. This little episode diffused unhappiness over the entire music.

CHAPTER III.

ACT SECOND.

The spectators had been told that there were imposing stage effects in the second and last act; and they were not disappointed. The entire front was filled with furniture, real mahogany and brocade, leaving barely room for human beings to walk about. The background was a perspective of pillars, conveying the idea of unlimited saloons, all opening into each other. Three Bohemian vases, filled with natural flowers, were placed on pedestals in places where they would be least in the way, if it were possible to make such a discrimination. But the great feature of the scene was a magnificent paper chandelier of nine candles, which hung from the centre of the framework, and made every spectator, while he admired, tremble with fear that it would set the house on fire.

At a small table in front, covered by a rich cloth, sat the heroine, dressed in a gorgeousness of apparel that mocked her misery. Beneath the gems that studded her bosom, there was supposed to be unappeasable wretchedness; and the white brow, covered with a spangled wreath, was presumed to ache with mental agony. She was pale and beautiful. Murmurs of applause ran round the apartment.