2 - Painted Veil by Beverle Graves Myers Page A

before uttering so much as one note. Someone in the crowd shouted, “Il Florino! Where is Il Florino?” Others took up the cry and it became a chant: “Il Florino, Il Florino, give us the best, Il Florino.”
    Torani called for silence, but the frenzied chant drowned him out. The crowd stamped their feet, relentless in their demand for Florio. The fickleness of the public sliced through my heart like a stiletto. Only two months ago, I was the most acclaimed
castrato
in Venice. Every person on the Piazzetta would have been thrilled for the opportunity to hear me sing without having to lay out money for a ticket to the opera.
    In one heartbreaking moment I realized that it would be impossible to perform for this mob that had ears only for the imported soprano. With bile rising in my throat, I turned and walked stiffly back to my seat between Emma and Florio. Kind as always, Emma slipped a comforting hand in mine. I steeled myself to meet the eyes of the
castrato
who had stolen my public. Expecting a look of gloating triumph, I was astonished to see a tear trickling down Florio’s plump cheek. He sent me a sad smile before moving to strike a majestic posture in the middle of the platform.
    How can I describe the intensity of the moment? The nobility under the canopy, the populace crowding the seats and the pavement, even the pigeons lined up on the roof of the palace were absolutely still. It seemed as if the clouds themselves nestled as close to the earth as they dared, just to experience the glory that was Florio.
    His first aria was slow and simple, no doubt chosen to demonstrate the quality of Florio’s voice in all its purity. He began with a few soft notes interspersed with frequent pauses, but how artfully those notes were sounded. When our ears had been ravished by the pathos of their limpid beauty, Florio soared up the scale, swelling each tone to an amazing volume. His voice was a palpable force, lifting us to the heights of heaven, supporting us on wings of ethereal perfection. Behind me a woman made a sound that was something between a scream and a sigh. I turned my gaze away from the singer just in time to see several ladies swoon into the arms of their escorts.
    Then Florio dropped to his low, mellow register and his voice became a whirlpool, drawing us down in dizzying, seductive swirls, drowning us in irresistible waves of song. Even though I knew what the man was doing, I found myself as overcome as anyone else. I had been taught the same techniques, but Florio was performing them so much better than I had ever dreamed of doing. Get hold of yourself, Tito, I thought. Don’t let jealousy get the upper hand. Listen and learn.
    Another scream sounded, this time filled with horror instead of yearning. The pigeons took flight; their wings whirred frantically over my head. An uproar swept through the boats clustered against the Molo steps. Florio kept producing beautiful music, but his eyes flickered from the Doge’s platform toward the water where the banner-draped Croatian vessel was drawing near the jetty. I craned my neck to locate the source of the disturbance.
    A swarm of boatmen were poking their oars into a length of scarlet silk trailing one of the larger gondolas. The boat’s owner, a florid-faced gentleman waving his tricorne hat in agitated circles, leaned over the gondolier’s deck and peered into the water with a look of revulsion. I stepped to the edge of our platform. As the gondola bumped against the Molo, the crowd on the stone steps parted. People twisted this way and that, fairly climbing over each other to get away from whatever was tangled in the coil of scarlet silk.
    A pair of hearty boatmen jumped down to make splashing grabs for the fabric that roiled and tumbled in the gray-green water. I glimpsed a swollen, pallid hand flung up by the waves. As one of the gondoliers braced himself against the steps and gave the length of red a mighty tug, the body of a man wrapped in a heavy cloth