Tancred - Benjamin Disraeli (little readers txt) 📗

Josephine received the urchin, and tossed him up to Adelaide, and in a moment the beautiful child was crowning the living pyramid, his smiling face nearly touching the rough ceiling of the chamber, and clapping his little hands with practised triumph, as Baroni walked about the stage with the breathing burden.

He stopped, and the children disappeared from his shoulders, like birds from a tree when they hear a sound. He clapped his hands, they turned round, bowed, and vanished.

'As this feat pleases you,' said the father, 'and as we have a gentleman here to-night who has proved himself a liberal patron of artists, I will show you something that I rarely exhibit; I will hold the whole of the Baroni family with my two hands;' and hereupon addressing some stout-looking fellows among his audience, he begged them to come forward and hold each end of a plank that was leaning against the wall, one which had not been required for the quickly-constructed stage. This they did with some diffidence, and with that air of constraint characteristic of those who have been summoned from a crowd to perform something which they do not exactly comprehend.

'Be not afraid, my good friends,' said Baroni to them, as Francis lightly sprang on one end of the plank, and Josephine on the other; then Alfred and Adelaide skipped up together at equal distances; so that the four children were now standing in attitude upon the same basis, which four stout men endeavoured, with difficulty, to keep firm. At that moment Madame Baroni, with the two young children, came from behind the curtain, and vaulted exactly on the middle of the board, so that the bold Michel on the one side, and the demure Carlotta on the other, completed the group. 'Thank you, my friends,' said Baroni, slipping under the plank, which was raised to a height which just admitted him to pass under it, 'I will release you,' and with his outstretched hands he sustained the whole burthen, the whole of the Baroni family supported by the father.

After this there was a pause of a few minutes, the stage was cleared and Baroni, in a loose great-coat, appeared at its side with a violin. He played a few bars, then turning to the audience, said with the same contemptuous expression, which always distinguished him when he addressed them, 'Now you are going to hear a scene from a tragedy of the great Racine, one of the greatest tragedy writers that ever existed, if you may never have heard him; but if you were at Paris, and went to the great theatre, you would find that what I am telling you is true.' And Josephine advanced, warmly cheered by the spectators, who thought that they were going to have some more tumbling. She advanced, however, as Andromache. It seemed to Sidonia that he had never listened to a voice more rich and passionate, to an elocution more complete; he gazed with admiration on her lightning glance and all the tumult of her noble brow. As she finished, he applauded her with vehemence. He was standing near to her father leaning against the wall.

'Your daughter is a great actress,' he said to Baroni.

'I sometimes think so,' said the father, turning round with some courtesy to Sidonia, whom he recognised as the liberal stranger who had so kindly increased his meagre audience; 'I let her do this to please herself. She is a good girl, but very few of the respectable savages here speak French. However, she likes it. Adelaide is now going to sing; that will suit them better.'

Then there were a few more bars scraped on the violin, and Adelaide, glowing rather than blushing, with her eyes first on the ground and then on the ceiling, but in all her movements ineffable grace, came forward and courtesied. She sang an air of Auber and of Bellini: a voice of the rarest quality, and, it seemed to Sidonia, promising almost illimitable power.

'Your family is gifted,' he said to Baroni, as he applauded his second daughter as warmly as the first; and the audience applauded her too.

'I sometimes think so. They are all very good. I am afraid, however, that this gift will not serve her much. The good-natured savages seem pleased. Carlotta now is going to dance; that will suit them better. She has had good instruction. Her mother was a dancer.'

And immediately, with her lip a little curling, a look of complete self-possession, willing to be admired, yet not caring to conceal her disgust, the little Carlotta advanced, and, after pointing her toe, threw a glance at her father to announce that he might begin. He played with more care and energy than for the other sisters, for Carlotta was exceedingly wilful and imperious, and, if the music jarred, would often stop, shrug her shoulders, and refuse to proceed. Her mother doted on her; even the austere Baroni, who ruled his children like a Pasha, though he loved them, was a little afraid of Carlotta.

The boards were coarse and rough, some even not sufficiently tightened, but it seemed to Sidonia, experienced as he was in the schools of Paris, London, and Milan, that he had never witnessed a more brilliant facility than that now displayed by this little girl. Her soul, too, was entirely in her art; her countenance generally serious and full of thought, yet occasionally, when a fine passage had been successfully achieved, radiant with triumph and delight. She was cheered, and cheered, and cheered; but treated the applause, when she retired, with great indifference. Fortunately, Sidonia had a rose in his button-hole, and he stepped forward and presented it to her. This gratified Carlotta, who bestowed on him a glance full of coquetry.

'And now,' said Baroni, to the people, 'you are going to see the crucifixion of Jesus Christ: all the tableaux are taken from pictures by the most famous artists that ever lived, Raphael, Rubens, and others. Probably you never heard of them. I can't help that; it is not my fault; all I can say is, that if you go to the Vatican and other galleries, you may see them. There will be a pause of ten minutes, for the children want rest.'

Now there was a stir and a devouring of fruit; Baroni, who was on the point of going behind the curtain, came forward, and there was silence again to listen to him.

'I understand,' he said, roughly, 'there is a collection going to be made for the children; mind, I ask no one to subscribe to it; no one obliges me by giving anything to it; it is for the children and the children alone, they have it to spend, that is all.'

The collectors were Michel and Adelaide. Michel was always successful at a collection. He was a great favourite, and wonderfully bold; he would push about in the throng like a Hercules, whenever anyone called out to him to fetch a Hard. Adelaide, who carried the box, was much too retiring, and did not like the business at all; but it was her turn, and she could not avoid it. No one gave them more than a sou. It is due, however, to the little boys who were admitted free, to state that they contributed handsomely; indeed, they expended all the money they had in the exhibition room, either in purchasing fruit, or in bestowing backsheesh on the performers.

'_Encore un liard pour Michel_,' was called out by several of them, in order to make Michel rush back, which he did instantly at the exciting sound, ready to overwhelm the hugest men in his resistless course.

At last, Adelaide, holding the box in one hand and her brother by the other, came up to Sidonia, and cast her eyes upon the ground.

'For Michel,' said Sidonia, dropping a five-franc piece into the box.

'A piece of a hundred sous!' said Michel.

'And a piece of a hundred sous for yourself and each of your brothers and sisters, Adelaide,' said Sidonia, giving her a purse.

Michel gave a shout, but Adelaide blushed very much, kissed his hand, and skipped away. When she had got behind the curtain, she jumped on her father's neck, and burst into tears. Madame Baroni, not knowing what had occurred, and observing that Sidonia could command from his position a view of what was going on in their sanctuary, pulled the curtain, and deprived Sidonia of a scene which interested him.

About ten minutes after this, Baroni again appeared in his rough great-coat, and with his violin. He gave a scrape or two, and the audience became orderly. He played an air, and then turning to Sidonia, looking at him with great scrutiny, he said, 'Sir, you are a prince.'

'On the contrary,' said Sidonia, 'I am nothing; I am only an artist like yourself.'

'Ah!' said Baroni, 'an artist like myself! I thought so. You have taste. And what is your line? Some great theatre, I suppose, where even if one is ruined, one at least has the command of capital. 'Tis a position. I have none. But I have no rebels in my company, no traitors. With one mind and heart we get on, and yet sometimes----' and here a signal near him reminded him that he must be playing another air, and in a moment the curtain separated in the middle, and exhibited a circular stage on which there were various statues representing the sacred story.

There were none of the usual means and materials of illusion at hand; neither space, nor distance, nor cunning lights; it was a confined tavern room with some glaring tapers, and Sidonia himself was almost within arm's reach of the performers. Yet a representation more complete, more finely conceived, and more perfectly executed, he had never witnessed. It was impossible to credit that these marble forms, impressed with ideal grace, so still, so sad, so sacred, could be the little tumblers, who, but half-an-hour before, were disporting on the coarse boards at his side.

The father always described, before the curtain was withdrawn, with a sort of savage terseness, the subject of the impending scene. The groups did not continue long; a pause of half a minute, and the circular stage revolved, and the curtain again closed. This rapidity of representation was necessary, lest delay should compromise the indispensable immovable-ness of the performers.

'Now,' said Baroni, turning his head to the audience, and slightly touching his violin, 'Christ falls under the weight of the cross.' And immediately the curtain parted, and Sidonia beheld a group in the highest style of art, and which though deprived of all the magic of colour, almost expressed the passion of Correggio.

'It is Alfred,' said Baroni, as Sidonia evinced his admiration. 'He chiefly arranges all this, under my instructions. In drapery his talent is remarkable.'

At length, after a series of representations, which were all worthy of being exhibited in the pavilions of princes, Baroni announced the last scene.

'What you are going to see now is the Descent from the Cross; it is after Rubens, one of the greatest masters that ever lived, if you ever heard of such a person,' he added, in a grumbling voice, and then turning to Sidonia, he said, 'This crucifixion is the only thing which these savages seem at all to understand; but I should like you, sir, as you are an artist, to see the children in some Greek or Roman story: Pygmalion, or the Death of Agrippina. I think you would be pleased.'

'I cannot be more pleased than I am now,' said Sidonia. 'I am also astonished.'

But here Baroni was obliged to scrape