Gramercy Park. Paula Cohen

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СКАЧАТЬ on the lily, is the fact that he dines regularly with the Prince of Wales. Alfieri is notorious, in fact, for having certain tastes in common with His Royal Highness that cannot be mentioned in polite society, and it is widely rumored that the two have been known, on numerous occasions, to cap their dinners with visits to certain private establishments where exquisite young women use astonishing skills to gratify quite other kinds of appetites.

      True or not, it makes no difference. The entire Continent lies at the tenor’s feet, and those American aristocrats who have seen and heard him during seasons in London, Paris, and Milan have, for several years, been feverishly negotiating for the honor of humbling themselves before the tenor on their own soil.

      And success is theirs at last. On the nineteenth of November, a little less than six months from tonight, Maestro Alfieri will make his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House and begin his conquest of yet another continent. To have ample time to prepare for this momentous occasion, he arrived here a week ago; and the reverence in which New York holds him can best be appreciated by realizing that Mrs. Astor had arranged to call upon him—in her own person—on the very next day, bearing an invitation to tonight’s gala.

      Alfieri had been reluctant to attend at first, pleading the fatigue of his travels, but Mrs. Astor had, of course, carried the day … with the result that he is here, now, looking like a prince of darkness with a familiar in mauve and purple—which is Mrs. Astor herself—appended to his arm.

      Magnificently arrayed, formidable in her majesty, Mrs. Astor stands in her traditional place beneath the celebrated life-sized portrait of herself by Carolus-Duran, bidding welcome to the long line of lesser divinities as they approach. Pearls and diamonds glitter, thick as the stars of heaven, across her antique lace bodice and down her long velvet train, and crowning her black pompadour is the fabulous diamond and amethyst starburst tiara that had once belonged to the Empress Eugénie.

      But for all her splendor, Mrs. Astor is eclipsed tonight. It is upon the tall and smiling man at her side that all eyes instinctively fasten. His face has long been familiar to habitués of Europe’s greatest opera houses: the wide forehead, the brilliant black eyes and heavy brows, the prominent nose, the full lower hp. Familiar, too, is the way that, in smiling, the right corner of his mouth draws up, creasing his cheek with deep lines of mirth and almost shutting his right eye … as if the warmth of his smile, so like the sunlight of his native land, causes him to squint even as it brightens everything it touches.

      Mrs. Astor, standing with her hands clasped about his arm, flutters in the light of that smile like a netted moth; and if Alfieri seems amused that she forgets her imperial dignity in his presence, it is a kindly amusement—such lapses happen all the time and he is used to them by now: one German princess even forgot herself so far as to kneel to him.

      “You are most kind to a stranger in a strange land,” he says to those who crowd around him as the receiving line dissolves in the heat of the evening’s excitement. “Thank you for inviting me.” His voice is soft and very light, holding no hint of any hidden glory.

      “The pleasure is New York’s, we assure you, maestro,” says one matron. “We only hope that you will enjoy your stay in our city, and come to think of it as home.”

      “Madame, if all of its people are like you, I cannot fail to do that.”

      It seems, in fact, that this night he cannot fail at anything. At the sight of him, New York goes slightly mad, its most exalted citizens jostling each other in their haste to be at his side, and he laughs as he shakes the hands of the gentlemen, and bends over the outstretched fingers of the ladies, and says charming and appropriate things to the glowing faces of both—such as how he remembers Mrs. Dobson from that reception in Rome two years ago, and hopes her daughter’s wedding had come off as planned; and how, yes, he does recall Mr. Martindale from that small supper party after the performance of Faust last fall in Paris, and trusts that his gout is much improved; and no, he has never had the pleasure before, but surely Mrs. Pennington must be a cousin, and not a very distant one, of the delightful Comtesse de la Mercier-Trouville, for the resemblance is certainly remarkable …

      And the city surrenders.

      Thaddeus Chadwick watches it go down from a vantage point on the far side of the ballroom. Three broad, shallow steps lead up and into the conservatory, and he stands on the topmost of these and observes the debacle through gleaming spectacles, a small, mild, Buddha-like smile on his face. He is a portly man, all jowls and chins, with sausage fingers encased in tight white gloves, and an odd, bobbing quality to all of his movements, for his thin legs and small feet seem not to support him so much as to anchor him to the ground, much as a string holds a child’s balloon.

      “… most astonishingly handsome,” one substantial lady in blue silk and sapphires is saying as she passes by amid a knot of revelers, fresh from their introductions to the guest of honor. “And not vulgar in the least. I had expected him to be quite uncouth … and yet he seems a perfect gentleman, for all that he is such a notorious libertine …” And she gasps, turning bright pink at her own audacity.

      Her companions laugh and murmur agreement, but a slender woman in dove-gray satin embroidered with pearls, replies: “Oh, no! My brother has written me from Florence. He says that the Alfieri family is most respectable. They can trace their line back to the fifteenth century, and are descended from the Medici.”

      “The Medici?” Chadwick says, lifting a glass of wine from the tray of a passing footman. “What of them, Mrs. Hadcock? If it is true—and I very much doubt that it is—they hardly seem to have done him much good. Your great Maestro Alfieri is no better than Little Tommy Tupper. He, too, sings for his supper.”

      It is the lady’s husband who takes up the challenge. “Perhaps you would call it supper, Chadwick, but then, attorneys doubtless set far richer tables than do bankers, which—alas!—is what I am. I rather think of what Maestro Alfieri sings for as a twelve-course banquet. With an excellent vintage at every plate.” Hadcock smiles faintly. “He earns twenty-five hundred dollars for each performance. A very rich supper,” he says, and eyes widen as jaws go slack.

      Chadwick clicks his tongue in disapproval. “Details of finance before the ladies, Hadcock? How shocking!”

      “Only when the boodle’s your own, old man,” says another member of the little group, turning to Hadcock. “Is that his price? For each performance?”

      “That, and twenty-five percent of the gross over five thousand … every time he steps onstage.”

      Another man does the calculations. “But that’s upward of five thousand dollars a night! For twenty performances … that’s one hundred thousand. You must be joking! Grau would never spend that kind of money … and even if he would, Morgan and the other shareholders would never stand for it!”

      “He would and they have. In fact, Morgan and the others will hoist Grau on their shoulders. Grau knows what draws, and he’s willing to spend in order to get. Alfieri will bring money into the house as it’s never been brought before.”

      “Where did you hear all this?”

      “Beeson told me over luncheon at the club. Grau called him in during the negotiations; they needed his expertise in foreign currencies and rates of exchange. Alfieri is no one’s fool, by the way … he’s being paid in pounds sterling and the money is going directly to his account in London.”

      “Beeson advised him, of course,” someone else says.

      “So I thought,” says Hadcock. “But Beeson says not. He said it was СКАЧАТЬ