Tales of My Native Town. Gabriele D'Annunzio
a widower without blood relations; for which reasons everybody was desirous to be of service to him and to flatter him.
“A little supper,” he answered. “And take care … !” He made an expressive sign to indicate that the thing must be excellent and rare.
Violetta Kutufa sat down, and with a languid effort removed her mask from her face and opened her domino a little. Her face, surrounded by the scarlet hood, and animated with warmth, seemed even more saucy. Through the opening of the domino one saw a species of pink tights that gave a suggestion of living flesh.
“Your health!” exclaimed Don Pompeo Nervi, lingering before the well-furnished table, and seating himself at length, allured by a plate of juicy lobsters.
Then Don Tito de Sieri arrived and took a place without ceremony; also Don Giustino Franco, together with Don Pasquale Virgilio and Don Federico Sicoli appeared. The group of guests at the table continued to swell. After much tortuous tracing and retracing of his steps, even Don Antonio Brattella came finally. These were, for the most part, habitual guests of Don Giovanni; they formed about him a kind of adulatory court, gave their votes to him in the town elections, laughed at every witticism of his, and called him by way of nickname, “The Director.” Don Giovanni introduced them all to Violetta Kutufa. These parasites set themselves to eating with their voracious mouths bent over their plates.
Every word, every sentence of Don Antonio Brattella was listened to in hostile silence. Every word, every sentence of Don Giovanni, was recognised with complacent smiles and nods of the head. Don Giovanni triumphed in the centre of his court. Violetta Kutufa treated him with affability, now that she felt the force of his gold; and now, entirely free from her hood, with her locks slightly dishevelled on forehead and neck, she indulged in her usual playfulness, somewhat noisy and childish. Around them the crowd moved restlessly.
In the centre of it, three or four harlequins walked on the pavement with their hands and feet, and rolled like great beetles. Amalia Solofra, standing upon a chair, with her long arms bare to the elbows, shook a tambourine. Around her a couple hopped in rustic fashion, giving out short cries, while a group of youths stood looking on with eager eyes. At intervals, from the lower room ascended the voice of Don Ferdinando Giordano, who was ordering the quadrille with great bravado.
“Balance! Forward and back! Swing!”
Little by little Violetta Kutufa’s table became full to overflowing. Don Nereo Pica, Don Sebastiano Pica, Don Grisostomo Troilo and others of this Ussorian court arrived; even to Don Cirillo d’Amelio, Don Camillo d’Angelo and Don Rocco Mattace.
Many strangers stood about with stupid expressions, and watched them eat. Women were envious. From time to time a burst of rough laughter arose from the table, and from time to time corks popped and the foam of wine overflowed.
Don Giovanni took pleasure in splashing his guests, especially the bald ones, in order to make Violetta laugh. The parasites raised their flushed faces, and, still eating, smiled at their “Director” from under the foamy rain. But Don Antonio Brattella, having taken offence, made as if to go. All of the feasters opposite him gave a low cry like a bark.
Violetta called, “Stay.” Don Antonio remained. After this he gave a toast rhyming in quintains. Don Federico Sicoli, half intoxicated, gave a toast likewise in honour of Violetta and of Don Giovanni, in which he went so far as to speak of “divine shape” and “jolly times.” He declaimed in a loud voice. He was a man long, thin and greenish in colour. He lived by composing verses of Saints’ days and laudations for all ecclesiastical festivals. Now, in the midst of his drunkenness, the rhymes fell from his lips without order, old rhymes and new ones. At a certain point, no longer able to balance on his legs, he bent like a candle softened by heat and was silent.
Violetta Kutufa was overcome with laughter. The crowd jammed around the table as if at a spectacle.
“Let us go,” Violetta said at this moment, putting on her mask and hood.
Don Giovanni, at the culmination of his amorous enthusiasm, all red and perspiring, took her arm. The parasites drank the last drop and then arose confusedly behind the couple.
IV
A few days after, Violetta Kutufa was inhabiting an apartment in one of Don Giovanni’s houses on the town square, and much hearsay floated through Pescara. The company of singers departed from Brindisi without the Countess of Amalfi. In the solemn, quiet Lenten days, the Pescaresi took a modest delight in gossip and calumny. Every day a new tale made the circuit of the city, and every day a new creation arose from the popular imagination.
Violetta Kutufa’s house was in the neighbourhood of Sant’ Agostino, opposite the Brina palace and adjoining the palace of Memma. Every evening the windows were illuminated and the curious assembled beneath them.
Violetta received visitors in a room tapestried with French fabrics on which were depicted in French style various mythological subjects. Two round-bodied vases of the seventeenth century occupied the two sides of the chimney-piece. A yellow sofa extended along the opposite wall between two curtains of similar material. On the chimney-piece stood a plaster Venus and a small Venus di Medici between two gilt candelabra. On the shelves rested various porcelain vases, a bunch of artificial flowers under a crystal globe, a basket of wax fruit, a Swiss cottage, a block of alum, several sea-shells and a cocoanut.
At first her guests had been reluctant, through a sense of modesty, to mount the stairs of the opera singer. Later, little by little, they had overcome all hesitation. Even the most serious men made from time to time their appearance in the salon of Violetta Kutufa; even men of family; and they went there almost with trepidation, with furtive delight, as if they were about to commit a slight crime against their wives, as if they were about to enter a place of soothing perdition and sin. They united in twos and threes, formed alliances for greater security and justification, laughed among themselves and nudged one another in turn for encouragement. Then the stream of light from the windows, the strains from the piano, the song of the Countess of Amalfi, the voices and applause of her guests excited them. They were seized with a sudden enthusiasm, threw out their chests, held up their heads with youthful pride and mounted resolutely, deciding that after all one had to taste of life and cull opportunities for enjoyment.
But Violetta’s receptions had an air of great propriety, were almost formal. She welcomed the new arrivals with courtesy and offered them syrups in water and cordials. The newcomers remained slightly astonished, did not know quite how to behave, where to sit, what to say. The conversations turned upon the weather, on political news, on the substance of the Lenten sermons, on other matter-of-fact and tedious topics.
Don Giuseppe Postiglioni spoke of the pretensions of the Prussian Prince Hohenzollern to the throne of Spain; Don Antonio Brattella delighted in discoursing on the immortality of the soul and other inspiring matters. The doctrine of Brattella was stupendous. He spoke slowly and emphatically, from time to time, pronouncing a difficult word rapidly and eating up the syllables. To quote an authentic report, one evening, on taking a wand and bending it, he said: “Oh, how fleible!” for flexible; another evening, pointing to his plate and making excuses for not being able to play the flute, he vouchsafed: “My entire p-l-ate is inflamed!” and still another evening, on indicating the shape of a vase, he said that in order to make children take medicine, it was necessary to scatter with some sweet substance the origin of the glass.
At intervals Don Paolo Seccia, incredulous soul, on hearing singular matters recounted, jumped up with: “But Don Antò, what do you mean to say?”
Don Antonio repeated his remark with a hand on his heart and a challenging expression, “My testimony is ocular! Entirely ocular.” One evening he came, walking with great effort and carefully, painstakingly prepared to sit down; he had “a cold, the length of the spine!” Another evening he arrived with the right cheek slightly bruised; he had fallen “underhand”; in other words, he had slipped and struck