Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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feelings of the soul, had never, so they said, experienced their effect. Never had she loved, never had her eyes responded to the thousand looks which were concentrated on her on the stage. It seemed that she lived but for her art and only for her art.
The first time he saw La Stilla, Franz experienced that irresistible ardour which is the essence of a first love. And he gave up his plan of leaving Italy, after visiting Sicily, and resolved to remain at Naples until the close of the season. As if some invisible bond he could not break had attached him to the singer, he was at all the performances, which the enthusiasm of the public converted into veritable triumphs. Many times, incapable of mastering his passion, he had tried to obtain access to her house; but La Stilla’s door remained as pitilessly closed against him as against so many other fanatic admirers.
And so it came about that the young count became the most to be pitied of men. Always in sight of his love, thinking only of the great artiste, living but to see her and hear her, he sought no longer to make friends in the world to which his name and fortune called him.
Soon this excitement so increased with Franz that his health was in danger. We can imagine what he might have suffered if he had had to bear the tortures of jealousy, if La Stilla’s heart had belonged to another. But the young count had no rival, as he knew, and none could give him umbrage—not even a certain peculiar personage, of whose appearance and character our story requires more notice.
He was a man between fifty and fifty-five at the time Franz de Télek last went to Naples. This incommunicative individual apparently strove to live outside the social conventionalities that prevail in the higher circles. Nothing was known of his family, his position, his past life. He was met with to-day at Rome, to-morrow at Florence, provided that La Stilla was at Florence or at Rome. In fact, he lived but to listen to the renowned singer, who then occupied the foremost place in the art of song.
If Franz de Télek had lived only in the delirium of his idolatry for La Stilla since the day he had applauded her, or rather had seen her on the stage at Naples, this eccentric dilettante had been following her about for six years. But he was not like the young count; in his case it was not the woman but the voice which had become so necessary to his life as the air he breathed. Never had he sought to see her except on the stage, never had he called at her house or attempted to write to her. But every time La Stilla appeared, in no matter what theatre of Italy, there passed in among the audience a man of tall stature, wrapped in a long dark overcoat, and wearing a large hat which hid his face. This man would hurry to his seat in a private box previously engaged for him, and there he would remain, silent and motionless, throughout the performance. But as soon as La Stilla had finished her last air, he would go away furtively, and no other singer would detain him—he had not even heard them.
Who was this spectator, so strangely assiduous at these performances? La Stilla had in vain sought to know; and, being of a very impressionable nature, she had become quite frightened at this curious man—an unreasonable terror, but still a very real one. Although she could not see him in the back of his box, she knew he was there, she felt his look imperiously fixed on her, and, greatly troubled by his presence, she no longer heard the cheers with which the public welcomed her appearance on the scene.
We have said that this personage had never approached La Stilla. Nothing could be truer. But if he had not tried to make her acquaintance—and we must particularly insist on this point—all that could remind him of the artiste had been the object of his constant attention. Thus he possessed the finest of the portraits which the great painter, Michel Gregorio, had made of the singer. This was, indeed, La Stilla impassioned, vibrating, sublime, incarnate in one of her finest characters, and the portrait acquired for its price in gold was well worth the price her wealthy admirer had paid for it.
If this eccentric individual was invariably alone when he occupied his box during La Stilla’s performances, if he never went out of his rooms but to go to the theatre, it must not be supposed that he lived in absolute isolation. No; a companion no less eccentric shared his existence.
This individual was known as Orfanik. How old was he? whence came he? where was he born? No one could have answered those three questions. To listen to him—for he was only too glad to talk—he was one of those unrecognized geniuses who have taken an aversion to the world; and it was supposed, and not without reason, that he was some poor devil of an inventor who was chiefly supported by the purse of his protector.
Orfanik was of middle height, thin, sickly, consumptive, and pale. He was remarkable for a black patch over his right eye, which he had lost in some experiment; and on his nose was a pair of spectacles, the only lens being that over his left eye, which glowed with a greenish look. During his solitary walks, he gesticulated as if he were talking to some invisible being who listened without ever answering.
These two characters, the strange melomaniac and the no less strange Orfanik, were known, at least as much as they wished to be, in all the towns of Italy to which the theatrical season regularly took them. They had the privilege of exciting public curiosity; and although the admirer of La Stilla had always repulsed the reporters and their indiscreet interviews, they had at last discovered his name and nationality. He was of Roumanian birth, and the first time Franz de Télek asked who he was, they told him,—
“The Baron Rodolphe de Gortz.”
Such was the state of affairs when the young count arrived at Naples. For two months the theatre of San Carlo had been full, and the success of La Stilla grew greater every evening. Never had she done herself more justice in her different characters, never had she called forth more enthusiastic ovations.
At each performance, while Franz occupied his orchestra stall, the Baron de Gortz sat at the back of his box, absorbed in this ideal song, impregnated with this divine voice, without which it seemed he could not live.
It was then that a rumour spread at Naples—a rumour the public refused to believe, but which eventually alarmed the dilettanti.
It was said that at the close of the season La Stilla was going to retire from the stage. What! In all the possession of her talent, in all the plenitude of her beauty, in the apogee of her artistic career, was it possible she thought of retiring?
Unlikely as it seemed, it was true, and undoubtedly the Baron de Gortz had something to do with her resolve.
This spectator with his mysterious proceedings, always there, although invisible behind the railing of his box, had at length provoked in La Stilla a nervous, persistent emotion which she could not overcome. Whenever she came on the stage she felt an influence come over her, and the excitement, which was apparent enough to the public, had gradually injured her health.
To leave Naples, to fly to Rome, to Venice, or to some other town of the peninsula, would not, she knew, deliver her from the presence of Baron de Gortz. She would not even escape him by abandoning Italy for Germany, Russia, or France. He would follow her wherever she made her self heard; and to deliver herself from this besetting importunity, her only chance was to abandon the stage.
Two months before the rumour of her retirement had been heard, Franz de Télek had taken a step with regard to the singer, the consequences of which were to be an irreparable catastrophe.
Free to do as he liked, and master of an immense fortune, he had succeeded in obtaining admission to La Stilla’s house, and had made her the offer of becoming Countess of Télek.
La Stilla had long known of the feelings with which she had inspired the young count. She had said to herself that he was a gentleman to whom any woman, even of the highest rank, would be happy to trust her life and happiness. And in the state of mind she then was, when Franz de Télek offered her his name, she received the offer with a sympathy she took no pains to hide. She felt herself loved in such a way that she consented to become the wife of Count Télek, and without regret abandon her dramatic career.
The news was then true; La Stilla would not appear again on any stage, as soon as the San Carlo season came to an end. In fact, her marriage, of which there had been some suspicions, was announced as certain.
This, as may be imagined, caused considerable excitement not only in the professional world, but in the fashionable world of Italy.