‘Bah!’ replied a young Liberal manufacturer, ‘isn’t M. de Saint–Giraud one of the Congregation? Haven’t his four children all got bursaries? Poor man! The town of Verrieres is simply bound to increase his income with an allowance of five hundred francs; that is all.’
‘And to think that the Mayor hasn’t been able to stop it!’ remarked a third. ‘For he may be an Ultra, if you like, but he’s not a thief.’
‘He’s not a thief?’ put in another; ‘it’s a regular thieves’ kitchen. Everything goes into a common fund, and is divided up at the end of the year. But there’s young Sorel; let us get away.’
Julien went home in the worst of tempers; he found Madame de Renal greatly depressed.
‘Have you come from the sale?’ she said to him.
‘Yes, Ma’am, where I had the honour to be taken for the Mayor’s spy.’
‘If he had taken my advice, he would have gone away somewhere.’
At that moment, M. de Renal appeared; he was very sombre. Dinner was eaten in silence. M. de Renal told Julien to accompany the children to Vergy; they travelled in unbroken gloom. Madame de Renal tried to comfort her husband.
‘Surely you are accustomed to it, my dear.’
That evening, they were seated in silence round the domestic hearth; the crackle of the blazing beech logs was their sole distraction. It was one of those moments of depression which are to be found in the most united families. One of the children uttered a joyful cry.
‘There’s the bell! The bell!’
‘Egad, if it’s M. de Saint–Giraud come to get hold of me, on the excuse of thanking me, I shall give him a piece of my mind; it’s too bad. It’s Valenod that he has to thank, and it is I who am compromised. What am I going to say if those pestilent Jacobin papers get hold of the story, and make me out a M. Nonante–Cinq?’[3]
A good-looking man, with bushy black whiskers, entered the room at this moment in the wake of the servant.
‘M. le Maire, I am Signor Geronimo. Here is a letter which M. le Chevalier de Beauvaisis, attache at the Embassy at Naples, gave me for you when I came away; it is only nine days ago,’ Signor Geronimo added, with a sprightly air, looking at Madame de Renal. ‘Signor de Beauvaisis, your cousin, and my good friend, Madame, tells me that you know Italian.’
The good humour of the Neapolitan changed this dull evening into one that was extremely gay. Madame de Renal insisted upon his taking supper. She turned the whole house upside down; she wished at all costs to distract Julien’s thoughts from the description of him as a spy which twice in that day he had heard ringing in his ear. Signer Geronimo was a famous singer, a man used to good company, and at the same time the best of company himself, qualities which, in France, have almost ceased to be compatible. He sang after supper a little duet with Madame de Renal. He told charming stories. At one o’clock in the morning the children protested when Julien proposed that they should go to bed.
‘Just this story,’ said the eldest.
‘It is my own, Signorino,’ replied Signer Geronimo. ‘Eight years ago I was, like you, a young scholar in the Conservatorio of Naples, by which I mean that I was your age; for I had not the honour to be the son of the eminent Mayor of the beautiful town of Verrieres.’
This allusion drew a sigh from M. de Renal, who looked at his wife.
‘Signer Zingarelli,’ went on the young singer, speaking with a slightly exaggerated accent which made the children burst out laughing, ‘Signor Zingarelli is an exceedingly severe master. He is not loved at the Conservatorio; but he makes them act always as though they loved him. I escaped whenever I could; I used to go to the little theatre of San Carlino, where I used to hear music fit for the gods: but, O heavens, how was I to scrape together the eight soldi which were the price of admission to the pit? An enormous sum,’ he said, looking at the children, and the children laughed again. ‘Signer Giovannone, the Director of San Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen years old. “This boy is a treasure,” he said.
‘“Would you like me to engage you, my friend?” he said to me one day.
‘“How much will you give me?”
‘“Forty ducats a month.” That, gentlemen, is one hundred and sixty francs. I seemed to see the heavens open.
‘“But how,” I said to Giovannone, “am I to persuade the strict Zingarelli to let me go?”
‘“Lascia fare a me.”’
‘Leave it to me!’ cried the eldest of the children.
‘Precisely, young Sir. Signor Giovannone said to me: “First of all, caro, a little agreement.” I signed the paper: he gave me three ducats. I had never seen so much money. Then he told me what I must do.
‘Next day, I demanded an interview with the terrible Signer Zingarelli. His old servant showed me into the room.
‘“What do you want with me, you scapegrace?” said Zingarelli.
‘“Maestro” I told him, “I repent of my misdeeds; never again will I break out of the Conservatorio by climbing over the iron railings. I am going to study twice as hard.”
‘“If I were not afraid of spoiling the finest bass voice I have ever heard, I should lock you up on bread and water for a fortnight, you scoundrel.”
‘“Maestro” I went on, “I am going to be a model to the whole school, credete a me. But I ask one favour of you, if anyone comes to ask for me to sing outside, refuse him. Please say that you cannot allow it.”
‘“And who do you suppose is going to ask for a good for nothing like you? Do you think I shall ever allow you to leave the Conservatorio? Do you wish to make a fool of me? Off with you, off with you!” he said, aiming a kick at my hindquarters, “or it will be bread and water in a cell.”
‘An hour later, Signer Giovannone came to call on the Director.
‘“I have come to ask you to make my fortune,” he began, “let me have Geronimo. If he sings in my theatre this winter I give my daughter in marriage.”
‘“What do you propose to do with the rascal?” Zingarelli asked him. “I won’t allow it. You shan’t have him; besides, even if I consented, he would never be willing to leave the Conservatorio; he’s just told me so himself.”
‘“If his willingness is all that matters,” said Giovannone gravely, producing my agreement from his pocket, “carta canta! Here is his signature.”
‘Immediately Zingarelli, furious, flew to the bell-rope: “Turn Geronimo out of the Conservatorio,” he shouted, seething with rage. So out they turned me, I splitting my sides with laughter. That same evening, I sang the aria del Moltiplico. Polichinelle intends to marry, and counts up on his fingers the different things he will need for the house, and loses count afresh at every moment.’
‘Oh, won’t you, Sir, please sing us that air?’ said Madame de Renal.
Geronimo sang, and his audience all cried with laughter.
Signor Geronimo did not go to bed until two in the morning, leaving the family enchanted with his good manners, his obliging nature and his gay spirits.
Next day M. and Madame de Renal gave him the letters which he required for the French Court.
‘And so, falsehood everywhere,’ said Julien. ‘There is Signor Geronimo on his way to London with a salary of sixty thousand francs. But for the cleverness of the Director of San Carlino, his divine voice might not have been known and admired for another ten years, perhaps . . . Upon my soul, I would rather be a Geronimo