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CONSUELO, THE GYPSY SINGER
By GEORGE SAND ANZOLETO was a street gamin of Venice. He had learned how to sing in Professor Porpora's school. He was handsome. He had imagination which colored his fine voice when he sang. Consuelo, a scrawny, dark-skinned Spanish peasant girl, was another of Porpora's pupils. She was plain, but had a beautiful voice and spirit. She and Anzoleto were good friends, nothing more, but he-an errant philanderer-was always falling in love and coming to Consuelo for sympathy and advice. He was a rascal and an ingrate. Consuelo made her first public appearance in the simple dress of a peasant girl, and her voice-filled with the fire of her soul-took the city. Every one was at her feet. Young suitors sought her hand and among them was Anzoleto. It was the romantic period in Venetian history, about 1650. Consuelo engaged herself to her fellow-pupil, but re-pulsed the others. Her genius had won admiration; her dignity and modesty had won respect. The Count Justinian not only engaged her for his theater, but fell in love with her and tried to win her from Anzoleto. She would not be led away and made it a part of her contract that her betrothed should also be engaged to sing. Her sweetness and fidelity the more deeply enslaved the count. Consuelo's rival, a singer named Corilla, was bitterly incensed by the action of the count. Anzoleto played on her jealousy and pretended to be her lover. Of this perfidy Consuelo knew nothing. At the first public performance Consuelo achieved renewed success, but Anzoleto was almost overlooked. Her teacher warned her not to marry Anzoleto, and to prove his case forced her to visit the home of Corilla. They found Anzoleto there and Consuelo was convinced of his perfidy. She repulsed Anzoleto, refused the love of the count, and fled to Vienna on the advice of Porpora. A little later Porpora sent her to his friend, Count Christian of Bohemia, to serve as companion to his niece, the Baroness Amelia, just come from a convent school at Prague. Consuelo, who arrived at the castle on a stormy night, was in awe of the count and his surroundings, but Amelia, a lovely girl, reassured her and won her instant affection. That night, as Consuelo came, an ancient tree on the estate, known as the tree of misfortune, fell in the storm. News of its fall threw the count's household into confusion and terror. "Some evil is abroad," the countess said, and soon after Count Albert, the son, entered, a handsome, pale, and sad young man, who announced that a strange peace was about to settle over the house. He smiled at Consuelo, touched her hand, and withdrew, leaving her deeply mystified. Albert, she soon learned, was a gentle and admirable soul, but a man of morbid moods which were in effect trances, and was only mildly interested in Amelia, who was intended to be his wife. Amelia told Consuelo that Albert was not only a medium, but a seer as well as a scholar, and that she found him unattractive. Consuelo, on the contrary, was charmed with Albert, who seemed much benefited by her presence. He accepted her as the consolation promised by an inner voice. Her singing called him from his trances, trans-ported and strengthened him. She became his physician as well as his confessor. She found herself surrounded by mysteries. Secret doors, inexplicable flames, gliding phantoms, stirred her curiosity and allured her to exploration. Once when Albert had been missing for a time they led her to a well. She descended it and found a secret passage. This she traversed and beyond it found her lover deranged and ill, in the care of an imbecile servant. She nursed him back to health. Consuelo's exposure and excitement in this midnight expedition produced a violent fever and Albert's love and care deepened. For a time it seemed as though he might win her hand, but between these devoted young people the dissolute Anzoleto thrust himself. Although at first she gave way before him, Consuelo regained her self-control and put him aside. The good Count Christian, find ing her nobly frank about her early life, not only expressed his admiration, but requested her to marry his son, whose reason she had restored. To this she answered, "The honor is very great, but I am a singer; I must return to my art." To avoid Anzoleto she fled by night toward Vienna in order to rejoin Porpora, her teacher. Consuelo reached there only to find old Porpora a master without a school or a pupil. In her attempts to secure a position at the Court Theater she failed, by reason of the opposition of the Empress Maria and the enmity of Corilla, her bitter rival. The corruption, the savage hatreds which marked the atmosphere of the court and the theater, led her to dream of Albert and the marriage he had offered. At last she wrote to Albert, expressing her love for him. Porpora, to whom she gave her letter to post, burned it and wrote one of his own to Count Christian. He was jealous of her art and desired to profit by it. Six weeks passed. Consuelo heard nothing from Albert, and as a sudden chance to sing in opera came to her she accepted it. Her goodness and generosity had won even Corilla, who yielded her part to her. One day, while rehearsing for Zenobia, her first great part, Consuelo thought she saw Count Albert in the dark spaces of the theater, a silent, flitting, mysterious figure. At about this time Baron Trenck, the notorious pandoor and freebooter, coming to the city, chanced to see Consuelo, and instantly fell in love with her, as did all men. She was terrified by his fierce manner and his disfigured countenance. One night he forced his way into her dressing-room and pleaded for her love. He cast magnificent jewels at her feet, and then, in a transport of fury, seized her in his arms as if to carry her away. A disguised, powerful man darted through the open door, seized the bandit, and threw him down the iron stairway. Although her rescuer's face was covered, Consuelo believed him to be Count Albert. She called, she ran toward him, but he was gone. As she stood looking down the dark stairway. the prompter announced the second act of the play and she went on the stage as Zenobia, adding to her triumphs. She sang now for Albert, believing that he was some-where in the audience. Her conviction was confirmed when, amid the flowers which fell around her, flung by the Empress and the people of the court, she picked up a small green sprig of cypress, which was to her a sign of grief and despair. It was like a symbol of death. In the midst of her uncertainty a letter came from the director of the Royal Theater in Leipsic, offering her a fine engagement. An agent brought the papers with him. Consuelo desired to leave for Vienna, for the Empress was determined that she should marry one of her favorites. As Porpora had destroyed her letter to Count Albert, so now he pretended to have had a reply in which Count Albert renounced all claim upon her. With unshaken faith in her old teacher, Consuelo sorrowfully accepted the new engagement, signed the contract, and started for Germania. It happened that the King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, ;traveling incognito, met her and was so pleilsed with her that he gave orders for her entertainment in his capital, but commanded that Porpora should be sent back to Vienna. All these plans, however, failed, for Baron Rudolstadt, uncle of Count Albert, brought word that the young man was dying and greatly longed to see Consuelo before he passed away. Without a moment's hesitation she hastened to the castle. Filled with exalted love and pity, Consuelo kissed the dying man, realizing that he was even then hardly more than a spirit. He desired her to marry him, in order that his fortune and his title might pass to her, and so firm and insistent was his demand that Consuelo consented. Count Albert lived only a few hours after the ceremony, leaving Consuelo sorrowful, but, after all, at peace. Then she turned her face toward the temple of her art. |