Two
1
Floria Tosca came from the Veneto, that territory on the mainland of northern Italy ruled by the Republic of Venice. There were in the Veneto important cities like Padua, Verona and Vicenza, but also unimportant cities such as Golla. Golla was significant only as the seat of a bishop. That bishop had an assistant or coadjutor, Monsignor Tochetti, among whose duties was the bestowing of the sacrament of Confirmation on the children in outlying parishes.
It was in performance of this duty that Monsignor Tochetti was to be found on a day in the spring of 1789, travelling in a shabby barouche from Golla to the small town of San Lorenzo. Beside him in the barouche sat Father Carnevali, his secretary, and, on the box holding the reins, the coachman Bruno. It was a fine day; the hood was down; and neither the horses nor the humans showed signs that they were pressed for time. It was a journey of two hours or so from Golla to the village of San Tomasso where they were to stop for lunch, and two hours more from there to San Lorenzo. The sky was clear, the air warm and scented by the budding acacias that lined the road.
Monsignor Tochetti was now fifty-three years old and aware that, with no patents of nobility, influential relatives, outstanding sanctity or exceptional administrative skill, he was unlikely to be appointed to a diocese of his own – unless it was some impoverished and out-of-the-way see where life would be less agreeable than it was in Golla. Tochetti liked his subordinate role. If he once had ambitions they had been, like his carnal passions, feeble and easily suppressed. He had one enthusiasm and that was music – not an unusual enthusiasm for an Italian and one wholly appropriate for a priest in the late eighteenth century when there was no clear distinction between compositions that were sacred and those that were profane. Paisiello, Cimarosa and Pergolesi wrote operas as well as sacred music. True, the popes in Rome would not permit women to sing onstage, but that was not the case in Venice or Milan; and in Rome there were sufficient celebrated castrati to play female roles. Indeed, there were some who considered the contralto or soprano voices of these eunuchs finer than those of women.
Tochetti knew that some outside Italy were disconcerted, even horrified, by the employment of castrati. An Englishman visiting Golla had berated Tochetti in the salon where they had met for what he described, in his poor French, as ‘abominable et inhumain’. Tochetti had explained that it was surely good that the misfortune of boys who had suffered disfiguring accidents in their youth – perhaps mutilated by pigs after falling into a sty (the parents of such choristers did not usually go into details) – should profit from their misfortune? Would a Girolamo Crescentini or a Luigi Marchesi have achieved such fame and fortune as tenors or baritones? And had not Jesus himself spoken favourably of eunuchs, praising those who had chosen the condition for the sake of the Kingdom of God – monks and priests and bishops like Tochetti?
As a celibate priest, Monsignor Tochetti felt in no position to judge whether the knowledge that the heroine of a drama such as Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto was in fact an emasculated male affected one’s appreciation of the sounds that filled the theatre. He had heard both women and castrati sing in churches and by and large felt that the tones of the castrati were somehow more sublime than the richer warbles of women: but was that because he knew these richer warbles were the voices of women, and so imagined a measure of carnality in the sound? Tochetti had a number of friends among the ladies of Golla, and had presided over the weddings of many of their daughters; but he also heard their confessions and knew how fragile was the flower of chastity – how quickly and easily it wilted when transplanted from a convent into the world.
One reason why Monsignor Tochetti was content not to be transferred to a see of his own was the thought that this would mean relinquishing his responsibility for the cathedral choir in Golla. Golla itself was not a diocese of great importance; its bishop was hardly a prince of the Church; and its cathedral, Gothic with later baroque embellishments, was architecturally undistinguished; but the cathedral choir, Monsignor Tochetti liked to think, was the equal of any in Italy – as fine as that of St Mark’s in Venice or St Peter’s in Rome. The monsignor’s confessor – a holy and irascible Franciscan – had warned him against tainting his soul with the sin of pride when it came to the choir which, though he did not personally direct it, was his creation: he had even gone so far as to augment the salary of the choirmaster from his own resources to entice a man of ability to move to Golla. And, suggested the severe confessor, did the monsignor perhaps go easy on the matrons of Golla when it came to the propriety of their relations with their cavaliere servente in the hope that this would make them more likely to contribute towards the commissioning of cantatas, Te Deums or Requiem Masses by fashionable and so expensive composers?
Tochetti would listen and ponder and make his act of contrition with a firm purpose of amendment; but then, like the matrons themselves who returned week after week to confess the same peccadillos, he would tell himself that beauty too, like truth, was an aspect of the divine; and that, while the end does not justify the means, a donation of ten scudi for the commission of a cantata would surely, to some small extent, help atone for a sin; and that the creation of a choir that drew many eminent people to forsake their private chapels to attend Mass at the cathedral, and add lavishly to the collection made during the Mass, surely contributed not just to the diocesan coffers but the greater glory of God.
*
Monsignor Tochetti and his entourage stopped at midday at the village of San Tommaso where the parish priest gave them lunch and provided the bishop with a bed for a short siesta. They then continued on the second leg of their journey and reached San Lorenzo at six in the evening. Father Giacomo, the parish priest, came out to greet them. He was around the same age as Monsignor Tochetti but, while the coadjutor bishop was tall and heavy, he was a slim, restless figure, bald under his dusty, horsehair wig. The two men greeted one another with a genuine warmth. Temperamentally they might have nothing in common – the one cautious and phlegmatic, the other talkative and sharp – but they shared a lack of ambition and both steered a steady course between the extremes of worldliness and religious enthusiasm.
An agreeable smell of roasting meat wafted into the parlour, and a pitcher of wine with three glasses was waiting on the sideboard but, after greeting Father Giacomo, and introducing his secretary, both the bishop and the priest went to wash the dust off their faces, and then passed from the house into the church to pray before the altar and thank God for their safe arrival. Monsignor Tochetti, while meditating upon the painful martyrdom of St Laurence who was roasted on a grill, could not prevent his thoughts from turning to that other roasting that he had sniffed a few moments earlier, wondering whether he could look forward to lamb cutlets or a beefsteak.
It was lamb cutlets, preceded by an antipasto and pasta, and followed by stewed pears with a rich custard. Father Carnevali, the bishop’s secretary, ate in respectful silence while the two older men chatted and exchanged learned quips. Father Giacomo shared the bishop’s love of music but was more interested in the written word. The Gazzetta Veneta was delivered a couple of days late to the presbytery at San Lorenzo and kept the abate Giacomo up to date on gossip and worldly affairs. Father Giacomo admired the Gozzi brothers, Carlo and Gasparo, who wrote regularly for the Gazzetta, Modo Morale and the Osservatore of their love of tradition and loathing of Voltaire, Rousseau and d’Alembert.
The food was eaten. The wine was drunk. At nine, pleading fatigue after his journey, Monsignor Tochetti rose from the table. His friend, Father Giacomo, escorted him to his room and then, after wishing him goodnight, leaned towards him and whispered: ‘We have an agreeable surprise for you tomorrow . . .’
2
Veni, creator Spiritus, mentes tuorum visita, imple superna gratia, quae tu creasti pectora. The ever-familiar words of the ancient hymn, and the sounds of the Gregorian chant, mingled with the smell of incense and candlewax as Monsignor Tochetti processed in a line of priests, deac
ons and altar boys – his own position, as befits the humility of a man in persona Christi, at the very end of the procession – followed only by an eight-year-old boy holding his train. His thoughts: ‘This church of San Lorenzo has some of the best acoustics in the diocese,’ and, ‘Father Giacomo has done good work with his choir; it is really quite excellent. Is this the surprise?’
The ceremony proceeded. An acolyte removed his mitre and handed it to the little cherub while another took hold of his crozier. Tochetti rose to deliver his homily – a set text that he had used many times before, though he tried to vary it so that it would not seem stale to the congregation, which he did with a few ad hoc embellishments such as a warning about the perilousness of reading impious books, a remote danger because few in the congregation could read, and none would have heard of Voltaire or Rousseau.
The homily over, the coadjutor bishop, flanked by acolytes, moved to the steps of the altar. The fourteen young men and women – the girls in white dresses, the youths in their best clothes – now came forward with their sponsors and knelt before Monsignor Tochetti. He laid the palms of his hands on their head – as the hands of Cardinal Buranzo many years before had been laid on his head to transmit invisibly the powers he was now exercising as a bishop in a direct and unbroken line from the twelve Apostles of Christ. And Tochetti believed as he touched the bare hair of the young men, and the lace veils of the young women, that a benevolent force was indeed descending from Heaven that would help these poor souls to resist the blandishments of Satan and deal with the vicissitudes of life; yet even as the supernatural powers flowed through his long, elegant fingers, Tochetti was thinking: ‘But where is the surprise?’
The last of the confirmed together with the sponsors returned to their seats. The ceremony was running towards its conclusion. Now that the Holy Spirit had received his due, it was the turn of the Virgin Mary, whose statue was festooned with flowers. Sitting on his throne adjacent to the altar, Tochetti heard from the organ the familiar first bars of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. And then came the voice.
Stabat mater dolorosa
juxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.
Tochetti turned, stupefied, and looked up for the first time at the organ loft over the entrance to the church. Never before had he heard, from a woman or a castrato, a voice so rich and strong yet ineffably pure. Sunlight shone through the stained glass – the coloured shafts of light given substance by the candle smoke and incense. In the shadow beneath these bright beams, the choristers, facing their choirmaster, were imprecise figures with featureless faces. Tochetti could not make out which mouth was open or shut; which figure was the soloist; which form was the source of such an exquisite voice.
Yet even though intoxicated by the ethereal sound coming from the organ loft, the coadjutor bishop Tochetti understood that it was unseemly for him to remain with his head crooked and his eyes fixed on the back of the church. He turned back to face the acolytes across the chancel, and resumed an expression of placid piety. Then, as the cantata ended, and he rose to give the congregation a final blessing, he met the eye of Father Giacomo. To his discreet look of amused interrogation, the bishop responded with a gentle nod: yes, the surprise had indeed been a surprise.
*
The sharp sounds of laughter and chatter in the dialect of the Veneto echoed in the red-tiled floor of the parish hall. There was a brief hush as the coadjutor bishop, divested and now in his black soutane with red piping and broad purple sash, entered the room with Fathers Giacomo and Carnevali at his side. He waved his raised hand, a gesture that all recognised as a sign that they should carry on laughing and chatting and eating their ices and macaroons. The bishop mingled with the newly confirmed children, their parents, grandparents, cousins and aunts and uncles. He held out his elegant hand to enable genuflecting peasants to kiss his episcopal ring. He pretended to remember the mothers whose elder children he had confirmed in earlier years. But all the while his eyes flitted between the wide shoulders of the thickset men and the coiffured heads of their bedecked wives looking for the source of the angelic voice. Finally, frustrated, he turned to Father Giacomo, who remained by his side, and said: ‘And is she here?’
Already, in the sacristy, as they had disrobed, he had asked Father Giacomo about the voice. ‘Most beautiful singing,’ he had said.
‘I am glad Your Grace was pleased,’ Father Giacomo had replied.
‘You must have a fine choirmaster.’
‘He does what he can.’
‘And the voice? The Stabat Mater? That was the surprise?’
‘Indeed. I had hoped that Your Grace, as a connoisseur, would remark on it.’
‘A woman.’
‘A young woman. Even . . . a girl.’
‘From the village?’
‘From the village, yes, but she has been raised by the sisters.’
The sisters, Tochetti knew, were the Carmelite sisters whose house was outside the walls of San Lorenzo.
‘Is she a nun?’
‘Not as yet. Her parents are poor. The father works as a gardener at the convent. That is why the nuns took her in.’
‘Not for her voice?’
‘I think then, aged ten or so, it was not yet clear that God had endowed her with such a precious gift.’
Tochetti had said no more. He knew the convent: he had made a number of visitations. The sisters were discalced Carmelite – the stricter branch of the order – and had an unusually large proportion of genuine vocations – women who had not been sent there for want of a husband, as was so often the case, but who wished to devote themselves to God. The prioress, Sister Monica, was a formidable woman, the daughter of the Venetian patrician, a Chigi: she treated her chaplains as lackeys and, during Tochetti’s visitations, behaved as if she outranked him in both the spiritual and temporal domains.
Now, standing among the noisy parishioners of San Lorenzo, the bishop received the reply from Father Giacomo he had not wanted. No, the singer was not there. She had returned to the convent.
‘Without even a macaroon?’
‘Sister Monica keeps her cloistered. It took some persuading to let her sing today.’
‘But she has taken no vows – the young woman?’
‘No. But I suspect that Sister Monica would like her to do so. She has been prepared, as it were, for a religious life.’
‘But that would be absurd.’ This was an involuntary expostulation – not addressed to Father Giacomo but heard by Father Giacomo all the same.
‘The sisters are very fond of her,’ said the priest.
‘But what do the parents say?’
‘They are very poor. Faced with Sister Monica . . .’
The bishop understood, but he also felt rise within him a certainty that the voice he had heard should not be confined to the chapel of a convent or the parish church of a village in the Veneto. Like a rare bird with exotic plumage, that voice must be free to fly in the wide open spaces of . . . a cathedral!
His duty done, Monsignor Tochetti returned to the parlour of the presbytery, asked for pen and paper, and wrote a note addressed to Sister Monica.
Reverend Mother, I find to my delight, by the providence of the Lord, that I am to spend another day in San Lorenzo and would be glad to say the first Mass of the day for your community. With God’s blessing, Alfredo, Coadjutor Bishop of Golla.
He folded the sheet of paper, called for wax, and sealed the letter with his episcopal ring. It was sent off at once and, two hours later, a reply was received from the prioress, Sister Monica, expressing her pleasure at what the bishop proposed.
3
Sister Monica was courteous and correct when Monsignor Tochetti, accompanied by Father Carnevali, arrived at the convent at six in the morning. All was ready in the sacristy and, after listening to the nuns hidden behind the grille sing matins, Monsignor Tochetti said Mass, and was then served breakfast in Sister Monica’s private parlour with the prioress sitting at the same tabl
e but eating nothing. As he ate his brioche and drank his coffee, the coadjutor bishop and the prioress talked about this and that, with Father Carnevali speaking only when spoken to; and eventually the conversation turned to the subject of music, the cathedral choir and from there to the beautiful voice of the young woman he had heard in the church of San Lorenzo the day before. ‘It really is exceptional,’ he said. ‘I have never heard anything quite as lovely before.’
‘God has given her a particular talent,’ said the nun – a sallow face and wary eyes visible under her cowl.
‘Who is this young woman?’ asked the bishop.
‘The daughter of our gardener. We took her in to live with the novices and get some kind of an education, though sadly she still struggles to read and write.’
‘Have you thought . . . has her father thought . . . of having her voice trained by a professional, and developing her talent?’
‘They are content to leave her as she is.’
‘But she is . . . what? Sixteen years old?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Do you sense that she has a vocation to the religious life?’
‘Not as yet.’
The bishop sat in silence for a moment; his brioche was eaten, his cup empty. Then, in a tone unusually imperative for a man who seemed so bland, he said: ‘I should like to see her. And her parents.’
‘That would be difficult,’ said Sister Monica.
‘Why difficult?’
‘It might take time.’
‘I am in no hurry.’
The nun bowed her head in reluctant acquiescence. ‘Very well.’ Her tone had an edge of irritation – irritation perhaps at the bishop’s request or at her own inability to think of a reason to refuse him. Strictly speaking, he had no jurisdiction over Sister Monica and her community of nuns; but the gardener, his wife and his daughter were not part of that community; they were parishioners of San Lorenzo and so came under the rule of the Bishop of Golla and now the bishop’s coadjutor acting in his place. Moreover, to refuse his request would be a discourtesy that would reflect badly on the community: what difficulties could there be in calling the gardener from the garden, his wife from her house and their daughter from within the convent?