The Unknown Masterpiece (7 page)

Raised by two abbés who, on the instructions of a pious father, rarely granted him any freedom whatever, Andrea had not loved a cousin at eleven, nor at twelve seduced his mother’s chambermaid; he had not frequented those academies where the most advanced instruction is not the kind provided by the State. Moreover, he had lived in Paris only a few years: he was therefore still open to those sudden and intense impressions against which French education and manners form so powerful a shield. In southern countries, grand passions are frequently generated by no more than a glance. A Gascon nobleman of the count’s acquaintance who had learned to temper a powerful sensibility by powerful reflection, accumulating a thousand little defenses against sudden paroxysms of head and heart, had advised Marcosini to indulge at least once a month in some magisterial orgy in order to dispel these tempests of the soul which, in the absence of such precautions, are likely to explode malapropos. Andrea recalled this advice. “Well,” he resolved, “I’ll begin tomorrow, January first!”

This explains why Count Andrea Marcosini was wavering so timidly about entering the rue Froidmanteau. The man of fashion embarrassed the lover and hesitated a long while, but after making a final appeal to his courage, the lover walked quite resolutely to the doorway he recognized without difficulty. Here he stopped once more. Was this woman really all he imagined? Wasn’t he about to commit some enormous gaffe? Then he remembered the Italian table d’hôte, and eagerly seized a middle term which would serve both his desire and his repugnance. He would enter the place in order to dine there! Andrea opened the door and walked down a dark hallway at the end of which he found, after some fumbling, a damp and slippery staircase which to an Italian grand seigneur must have seemed little more than a ladder. Climbing the stairs by the light of a small lamp set on the floor and following a strong smell of cooking, he pushed a half-open door and found himself in a low room dingy with smoke and dirt, where a woman out of Leonardo’s caricatures was setting a table for some twenty diners, none as yet present. After a glance around this dim room where the paper dangled in strips from the walls, the count chose a seat near the stove that was hissing and smoking in one corner. Alerted by the sounds this first guest made as he came in and took off his cloak, the maître d’hôtel suddenly appeared. Imagine a tall, thin, wizened chef, endowed with a perfectly enormous nose, darting feverish glances around the room in an attempt to appear conscientious. Catching sight of Andrea, every item of whose appearance suggested great wealth, Signor Giardini bowed respectfully. The count indicated his desire to dine regularly in the company of his compatriots, to take a certain number of meal tickets in advance, and managed to give the conversation a friendly turn in order to arrive more readily at his real goal. No sooner had he mentioned the unknown woman he was interested in than Signor Giardini made a grotesque gesture and cast a sly glance at his guest, allowing a smile to pass over his lips.

“
Basta!
” he exclaimed. “
Capisco!
Vossignoria
has been brought here by two appetites. Signora Gambara hasn’t wasted her time if she’s managed to interest a gentleman as generous as you appear to be. In few words I shall tell you all we know about this poor woman, who is truly to be pitied! The husband is a native of Cremona, I believe, and comes here from Germany, where he intended to create new music and new musical instruments among
i Tedeschi
! Is that not pitiable?” Giardini inquired with a shrug of the shoulders. “Signor Gambara, who takes himself for a great composer, does not strike me as great in other respects.
Galant’uomo
though he may be, full of wit and knowledge, on occasion quite agreeable, particularly when he has taken a few glasses of wine—a rare occasion, by reason of his dreadful poverty—he busies himself night and day composing imaginary operas and symphonies instead of trying to earn an honest living. His poor wife is reduced to doing needlework for all sorts of people, some really beyond the pale! What else can she do? She loves her husband like a father and looks after him like a baby! Any number of young men have dined with us to pay their court to the signora, yet none has achieved
success
,” he announced, emphasizing this last word. “Signora Marianna is a virtuous woman, too virtuous for her own good! Men give nothing for nothing today. And so the poor woman will starve to death! And how do you think the husband rewards such devotion? ... Bah! With not even a smile. Bread and water is all they eat, for not only does this poor devil not earn a sou, he even spends whatever money his wife earns on instruments which he carves and lengthens and shortens and takes apart and puts together until the only sounds they make scare away the cats; then he’s happy! And yet you’ll see—he’s the gentlest and kindest of men, anything but idle, always working. The truth is, he’s mad and doesn’t know it. I’ve seen him filing and forging those instruments of his and eating black bread with an appetite I myself would envy, though I serve the best table in Paris. Yes,
eccellenza
, a quarter of an hour from now you’ll learn the sort of man I am. I’ve introduced refinements into Italian cooking which will astound you. I am a Neapolitan,
eccellenza
, which means I am a born chef. But what use is instinct without knowledge? Knowledge! I’ve spent thirty years acquiring knowledge, and you see where it’s brought me. Mine is the story of all men of talent! My discoveries, my experiments have ruined three restaurants in succession, in Naples, in Parma, in Rome. Today, now that I’m reduced to making a trade of my art, I indulge my ruling passions more than ever before. I serve these poor refugees some of my favorite dishes—and that’s how I ruin myself! Nonsense, you’ll say? I’m well aware of the fact; but what can I do? Talent is too much for me: I cannot resist creating a dish which tempts me. These guests of mine always know what’s being served, they can tell if it’s me or my wife who handles the saucepans. And what’s the result? Out of the sixty guests I would see around my table every dinner in the days when I founded this wretched restaurant, no more than twenty come today, and most of those dine on credit, thanks to me! The Piedmontese and the Savoyards have left, but the connoisseurs, the people of taste, the true Italians have stayed with me. And for them I would make any sacrifice! I often give them a dinner for twenty-five sous a head that costs me twice as much to make!”

Signor Giardini’s aria was so redolent of naïve Neapolitan cunning that the delighted count imagined he was back at a puppet theater.

“If that’s the case, my dear host,” he replied to the chef quite familiarly, “since chance and your confidences have revealed the secret of your daily sacrifices, permit me to double the sum I pay you.” As he spoke these words, Andrea spun a forty-franc piece on the stove, out of which munificence Signor Giardini religiously returned two francs fifty centimes, not without various discreet gestures which delighted the young nobleman.

“In a few minutes,” Giardini continued, “you will see your
donnina
. I’ll seat you next to the husband, and if you want to be in his good graces, talk music. I’ve invited both of them, poor souls! Because of the New Year, I’ve created a special dish in which I believe I’ve surpassed myself...”

Signor Giardini’s voice was drowned out by the noisy greetings of the guests who arrived quite capriciously, in pairs and singly, following the custom of the table d’hôte. Giardini chose to stand near the count, in order to point out his regular customers. He was determined by his comic turns to bring a smile to the lips of a man whom his Neapolitan instincts identified as a rich patron ripe for plucking.

“That man,” he said, “is a poor composer who’d like to abandon ballads for opera, but he can’t manage it. He complains about directors, about music dealers, about everyone except himself, and of course he has no crueler enemy. You see what a florid complexion he has, what chubby self-satisfaction, how little effort there is in his features—appropriate for ballads but nothing else. The man who’s with him, the one who looks like a match seller, is one of our greatest musical celebrities, Gigelmi, the greatest orchestra conductor in all Italy; but he’s gone deaf and now he’s ending his days in misery, deprived of the very thing that made his life so beautiful. Oh! Here comes our great Ottoboni, the most naïve old man on earth, but suspected of being the wildest of all those lunatics conspiring to regenerate Italy. I wonder how such a lovable old man could ever be banished?”

Here Giardini glanced at the count, who, realizing he was being interrogated as to his political allegiances, withdrew into an impassivity altogether Italian.

“A man obliged to cook for the world must deny himself political opinions,
eccellenza
,” the chef announced as he continued. “But at the sight of this good man, who resembles a sheep much more than a lion, everyone would say just what I think about him to the Austrian ambassador himself! For that matter, these are times when liberty is no longer proscribed—her turn will come again! Or so these good souls believe,” he whispered in the count’s ear, “and why should I dash their hopes? Though I,
eccellenza
, I myself have nothing against absolutism: every great talent is absolutist! Well, though Ottoboni has genius, he takes incredible pains for the education of Italy, composes pamphlets to enlighten children and the laboring classes, and apparently has no difficulty smuggling this literature into Italy, making every effort to reawaken the conscience of our poor country, which prefers pleasure to freedom, perhaps with good reason!”

The count’s expression remained so impassive that the chef could discover no clue to his true political opinions.

“Ottoboni,” resumed Giardini, “is a saintly man, always ready to help others, beloved by all the refugees, for as you know,
eccellenza
, a liberal may possess virtues! Ah! There’s a journalist,” he said, indicating a man dressed in the absurd costume once attributed to poets in attics, for his suit was threadbare, his boots cracked, his hat greasy, and his overcoat in a state of deplorable decay. “That poor man,
eccellenza
, is full of talent and...incorruptible! He’s living in the wrong period: he tells everyone the truth, and no one can bear him. He covers the theater for two obscure papers, though he’s educated enough to write for the big dailies. Poor fellow! The others aren’t worth your notice;
vossignoria
will soon discover who they are,” he said, realizing that at the sight of the composer’s wife the count was no longer listening to him.

Seeing Andrea, Signora Marianna gave a start and her cheeks turned bright red.

“Here he is,” Giardini murmured, squeezing the count’s arm and indicating a very tall man. “You see how pale he is, how serious, poor fellow! His hobbyhorse didn’t run today.”

Andrea’s amorous fantasies were suddenly disturbed by the spell Gambara’s presence cast upon any artistic nature. The composer was in his early forties, but though his broad forehead from which the hair had receded was furrowed by shallow wrinkles, though a network of blue veins tinged the transparent skin over his hollow temples, though his heavy-lidded dark eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, the lower part of his face, with its calm lines and gentle contours, gave him every appearance of youth. Even a casual observer could see that this man’s passions had been sacrificed to intellect, which alone had aged in some tremendous struggle. Andrea quickly glanced at Marianna, who was watching him. At the sight of her lovely Italian head, its perfect proportions and splendid coloring attesting to one of those organisms in which every human impulse is harmoniously balanced, he measured the abyss separating these two beings chance had united. Pleased by the portent of this disparity between husband and wife, Andrea abandoned any attempt to oppose the sentiment that might raise a barrier between the lovely Marianna and himself. Already, perceiving the calm and steadfast sorrow in Gambara’s melancholy gaze, he entertained a kind of respectful pity for this husband whose sole blessing was his wife. Having expected, from Giardini’s description, the sort of grotesque personage so often encountered in German legends and opera libretti, here was a simple and reserved man whose manners and bearing, quite free of eccentricity, possessed a nobility all their own. Without presenting a trace of luxury, his clothes were more seemly than his extreme poverty warranted, and his immaculate linen testified to the affectionate care that ministered to every detail of his life. With moist eyes, Andrea glanced warmly at Marianna, who did not blush, and her half smile expressed the pride such mute homage inspired. Too beguiled to miss the least indication of a response, the count imagined himself loved, now that he saw how well he was understood. Henceforth he devoted himself to the conquest of the husband rather than of the wife, training all his batteries on poor Gambara who, suspecting nothing, was gulping down Signor Giardini’s
bocconi
without even tasting them. The count opened the conversation with some banal question, but from Gambara’s first reply he realized that the man’s intelligence, possibly blind on one point, was extremely clear-sighted on all others, and decided that his strategy must not be to flatter this inspired simpleton’s obsessions but rather to attempt to understand his ideas.

The other guests, a famished crew whose wit awakened at the prospect of any meal, good or bad, betrayed a distinct hostility to poor Gambara, only waiting for the second course to give free rein to their abuse. One refugee, whose ogling betrayed a particular intention with regard to Marianna and who supposed he would make his way into her favors by intensifying the general mockery of her husband, opened fire by familiarizing the newcomer with the procedures of the table d’hôte.

“How long it’s been since we’ve heard anything about that
Mohammed
opera of yours!” he exclaimed, grinning at Marianna. “Could it be that Paolo Gambara, caught up in the toils of domestic life and absorbed by the charms of the hearth, is neglecting that superhuman gift of his, while his genius grows cold and his imagination lukewarm?”