The Voice of Reason

When the great singer Marisse de Cavallo of the Opera Nationale suddenly realized, in the middle of a performance of Rigoletto, that her husband was not just preoccupied with business as he had said, but was having an affair with the young cellist from Argentina who sat in the second stand position, the high note she was singing—a high B that comes toward the end of the cadenza in the aria, Caro Nome—turned into a cry of anguish so shrill, so distressing, the entire cast dropped any semblance of character, turned around open-mouthed, and gaped at her. The audience, who had been lulled into the trance she wove with her golden voice, sat up suddenly and clapped their hands to their ears. So piercing was her shriek that the lenses broke in a woman’s opera glasses, the chandeliers trembled, and a young child’s ear began to bleed.

The conductor, a strict disciplinarian and former leader of the army marching band, steadied himself and attempted to regain control of the orchestra. With his baton he began to beat out the rhythm again, but no one followed. The concertmaster had broken his E-string, and the young cellist from Argentina, for a reason she herself did not understand, had begun to cry. The audience too had succumbed to the disruption, and only a few remained in their seats. Someone near the young boy whose ear was bleeding called for a doctor. A small argument ensued about whether it would be better to move him to one of the velvet banquettes in the lobby or leave him where he was with a handkerchief pressed to his ear. The mother, who had spent all her efforts cultivating an appreciation for music in her young son, stood in the aisle helplessly wringing her hands and crying that he would end up deaf and never learn to play the oboe.

Finally, the stage manager, a short, ferocious man with an aversion to life in the spotlight, shuffled on stage and began to stammer: “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen… What I mean to say—well, as you can see, we cannot continue now.” He glared in the direction of the dressing room where Marisse was now sobbing, then turned back to the audience and said rather abruptly: “I mean to say, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to get your money now, we will have to give it back.”

That same evening, as Marisse was having her violent realization, her husband, the eminent musicologist, Pietro Albanese, was in the music library at the University poring over a facsimile of a ballata attributed to the thirteenth century composer, Francesco Landini. His eyes were tired and he longed to be home in his antique bed covered with the silky white eider-down, his head buoyed up on two plump pillows, but he had promised to help a group of students who were forming an early music consort. In truth, he had not the slightest thought of his wife at that moment. Although he never failed to appear by her side at an opening night, he had long since grown accustomed to, even bored with, the voluptuousness of her career and the hunger that made her push herself harder and harder for a success she had long since attained and surpassed. She was, without a doubt, the most celebrated soprano in the country, invited time after time to appear on television shows, to promote soft drinks and toothpastes, to give command performances after dinners with high government officials. She had appeared at La Scala, Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera, always to sold-out houses.

Indeed, Pietro Albanese was lost in thought, but it was the purity of a musical line he pondered, the simplicity of a verse written seven hundred years before that had captured his imagination: “Thou hast, oh maiden, so stricken me with love that I can find rest only when thinking of thee.” He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and, as men in their middle years are prone to do, thought longingly of himself as a young man. Unashamed, even as the warm balm of tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, he remembered the sharp pangs of desire that had once tormented him, long before he found his rest in the broad oceanic heart of the grand diva, Marisse. The anguish of his youth now seemed sweet, and, moreover, he recalled that in those days beautiful women had been plentiful, each more haunting than the one before.

As a young man, Pietro Albanese had poured his very being into two pursuits — the composition of music and the conquest of women. Nothing came close to the ecstasy of creation, the sudden discovery of a motif or a countersubject, or the wave of inspiration that sent the development section of a sonata spilling out of him as fast as he could move his pen across the paper, except the sight, the smell, or the touch of a beautiful woman. For it was beauty above all else that Pietro Albanese worshiped. In its presence he was awestruck, childlike, even bumbling. And women had been constantly drawn to the look of wonderment in his wide eyes.

But Pietro, being somewhat insecure and mistrustful of his own musical instincts, sought refuge in the study of all that had come before him. So it was that he came to analyze every musical style that developed in western music from the eighth century secular music of the Romans and the Franks to the high serialization of the twentieth century composers, Milton Babbitt and John Cage. Pietro Albanese became a scholar, an expert, specializing in the ornamentation of German music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but equally at home discussing the late quartets of Beethoven or even the influence of American jazz on contemporary classical music. He could explain in the most minute detail the cultural influences on a given composer or how he had created structural tension, dissonance and resolution, in a given composition. He could elaborate on the relationships of the parts to the whole, the significance of the tonalities. But in devoting his efforts to unravelling the mysteries of the world’s most beautiful music, Pietro had lost the sense of spontaneity and joy that had made him audacious enough to try to create music himself. Like a dancer watching his own feet, Pietro Albanese tripped over his massive intellect. He became hopelessly knotted and tangled in his perceptions until his mind cast a cold shadow over his awestruck and impassioned heart.

His own manuscripts long since stored away in a carton under the bed, Pietro had been hard at work on his dissertation when he first heard Marisse de Cavallo sing. Her voice, so glorious, so free of affectation, at once captured his imagination. She was, at the time, unknown in the world, a mere student, with little awareness that a monumental career lay ahead of her. Quite the contrary, she was flattered by Pietro’s attention, for he had already earned a reputation as one of the University’s great minds, a consummate musician with an unerring ear, and, in short, something of a musical snob.

They married soon after they met. He finished his dissertation and was offered a job teaching at the University. She, after a short stint as the soloist with a small chamber ensemble, was invited to sing at the Opera Nationale. And for the next twenty-four years, they busied themselves with their careers and remained utterly faithful to each other.

True, Pietro had, of late, begun to stay at the library well into the early hours of the morning studying treatises and jotting down notes for lectures or articles he planned to send to The Journal of the Appoggiatura or The Semidemiquaver Review. Often, before returning home, he would stop for a glass of brandy at a local bar frequented by students. But Marisse, herself, rarely returned home before midnight, so often was she detained after performances by photographers, reporters, and fans. And if Pietro was prone, in secret, to a passing erotic fantasy about the young waif-like students who so earnestly played their viols, lutes, and recorders in his class, Marisse, too, had occasionally felt her heart race as she, in the height of operatic passion, fell into the arms of a leading man.

One particular student did come to mind as Pietro leaned back in his chair that evening. Her image wafted before him as gently as the rise and fall of a chiffon scarf on a summer’s breeze. She had appeared in his class several weeks earlier, a wisp of a girl, with pale ivory skin, an effusion of gold hair and eyes as vibrant as gas jets in the dark, and had performed a wildly impassioned rendition of the Sarabande from Bach’s fifth cello suite. Indeed, it was she, the young cellist from Argentina, with whom Pietro was preoccupied at the precise moment when Marisse made her entrance in the second act.

As always, Marisse had thrown herself into the role of Gilda, the guileless daughter of the court jester, Rigoletto. She drew from her repertoire of emotions the breathless excitement, the splendid tremulousness of young love. She remembered, as she began her duet with the Duke who, for sport, sets about capturing Gilda’s innocent heart, her first meeting with Pietro almost twenty-five years ago. Pietro’s cheeks had been rosy with shy exhilaration as he had rushed backstage after her performance of the Bach Magnificat. “Ravishing!” he had exclaimed. “I am at a loss for what else to say.” He had gazed at her with smoldering brown eyes as he searched for words to express what was inexpressible. “I have heard this music maybe a hundred times,” he said, “analyzed it, given lectures about it. Perhaps I have taken its beauty for granted. But today, your singing was so startling, so extraordinary.” His mouth was open, but for a moment no more words came out. “So, uh, unexpected,” he stammered, “that everything I know has flown out of my mind.”

As Marisse began the aria, Caro Nome, she was inspired by that first conversation—Pietro blushing, transported, and she, too, suddenly overcome and enthralled, as if waking from the dream of ordinary expectations to find herself floating serenely like a dirigible above a stadium of ecstatic fans. But intruding on her happy remembrance, as she sang, was the more prosaic reality of their recent married life. Marisse had been aware for months that Pietro’s attention was wandering. He was affectionate as ever, although his caresses seemed somewhat perfunctory. And when they made love, the route from arousal to satisfaction was without surprise, without error, as one might walk from the bed to the toilet in the middle of the night without bumping into a wall.

She fought to maintain her concentration as she sang, but her consciousness was repeatedly pricked with doubt. Was Pietro finally bored with their life together, Marisse wondered, although she continued to sing with breathtaking élan. When had he last gazed lovingly at her across the table? When had a stray hair last provoked him to brush a tender hand across her cheek? Why did he now seem so far away? And suddenly her heart was pierced with the answer. For just recently she had noticed a childlike sparkle in Pietro’s eyes. He had been speaking about a student. What had he said? The words floated back to her on the trills of the flutes and the rich legato of the strings. “Such an exquisite young cellist has enrolled in my class, an extraordinary musician, the most fragile, angelic of girls, with the complexion of a Botticelli.” Those were his words: exquisite, extraordinary, fragile, angelic.

And furthermore, Marisse mused, hadn’t he returned late every evening for the past several weeks? And hadn’t she seen the young cellist rush off after each performance, even before the last curtain had come down. And hadn’t the girl’s name, Anna Bensussen, been all too frequently on his lips? And had he not, as if to conceal his own obsession, mentioned casually that perhaps Marisse might know the girl. “I believe she plays in the opera orchestra, my dear,” he said just the other morning. “You should keep an eye out for her, maybe invite her to the house for supper some evening.”

These doubts, questions and remembrances collided under the smooth surface of Marisse’s singing. Her pulse quickened and she began to feel fevered, light headed, enraged. After all, she was nearing fifty. She could feel herself aging, drying out, and although she kept her dark hair lustrous with a rinse and smoothed her skin with various creams, she knew her days as an ingenue were numbered. Even in opera, reality could be pushed only so far. As her rage and jealousy mounted, she pictured her husband making love to the young cellist while she, her hair grey and her voice shrivelled to a rasping whisper, looked on. Even so, she continued to sing the saccharine words of the aria about undying love. How aggravating, she thought. How ridiculous, that she, as the poor, ignorant Gilda should be singing naive words of love about a man who, by the fourth act, will have shown himself to be nothing more than a callous libertine. And how fitting that the role of the Duke should be sung by a fat, conceited young tenor who had already earned a reputation for seducing members of the chorus in his dressing room. Marisse was overcome with loathing for the tenor, for youth, for her husband, for the very words she was singing, and suddenly, despite herself, she let out the terrifying shriek.

Several members of the chorus and the stage crew followed Marisse when she ran sobbing from the stage to her dressing room. They pressed their ears to the door she slammed behind her, and although someone called out timidly to ask if she needed assistance, no one dared enter except Consuela, the wardrobe mistress, an experienced woman who viewed the histrionics of opera singers with the quiet composure of a nun. No tantrum alarmed her, no slammed doors, no crystal wine glasses hurled against a wall. Even when, years before, the great tenor, Pagliotti, sent a priceless Chinese vase crashing to the floor in a fit of jealous rage, she merely shrugged and said, “It is only a receptacle for flowers, after all. What thing is so important that it cannot be swept up and thrown into a dust bin?” But to Consuela, the voice was a different matter—a fragile instrument to be coddled, warmed with tea and cognac, soothed with honey and lemon. So when she heard Marisse’s sudden shriek and saw her mad dash to the dressing room, she pushed her way through the crowd.

“Signora, please,” she said as she opened the door and rushed to her side. “Whatever has happened, you mustn’t cry.”

Marisse would not be consoled. “Bring me the girl!” she demanded in a voice that was meant to sound imperious, but, because she was still in the midst of a sob, sounded more like the bellowing of a cow.

“What girl, signora?” asked Consuela as she took a wet cloth and pressed it to Marisse’s forehead.

Marisse pushed her away. “The little cellist,” she sobbed. “The little Botticelli. Anna. Bring her to me.”

“But Signora,” Consuela protested. “Surely you don’t—“

“NOW!” Marisse screamed in a voice that sent Consuela careening out the door.

Anna Bensussen was packing her cello into its case when Consuela came to fetch her. Her eyes were dewy, her mood, pensive. From the first chords of the overture—sustained octaves played by the trumpets and trombones—she had felt overpowered by the music, as if there were no separation between the instruments, the sounds they made and her own body. Her skin and bones, the blood cells rushing through her veins, vibrated like the strings of her cello. She felt as if she had been subsumed into a life form much larger and more powerful than her own. Like many of the young musicians at the University, she had taken to reading the Oriental philosophers, and she was inclined to imagine herself as a mere vessel, a conduit for the profound power of music that radiated through her and connected her to all other beings, sentient and insentient. It was the music, all the instruments united yet separate, the awesome grandeur of the orchestra that overwhelmed her and sometimes made her long to cry out just as Marisse had done in the middle of the aria. For Anna heard the shriek not as a cry of desperation, but as a spontaneous outpouring of passion, a daring, electrifying moment of self-expression. Only a true artist of the caliber of Signora de Cavallo could have the courage, the abandon, to so fully articulate her emotions regardless of the consequences. These were Anna’s thoughts when Consuela tapped her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, Signorina,” Consuela said. “Signora de Cavallo has asked to see you now.”

“Me?” Anna asked, thinking the old woman must have been mistaken. After all, singers of Marisse de Cavallo’s stature did not often request the company of orchestral musicians.

Consuela nodded.

“Are you sure?” Anna asked.

Snorting impatiently, Consuela replied, “Signorina, if I were not sure, I would not waste my time, now would I?”

Anna knew little about the personal life of Marisse de Cavallo, except that she was married to Professor Albanese. Nonetheless, had Anna been more suspicious by nature and not so engrossed with her thoughts about universal harmony and the power of self-expression, she might have guessed the reason for the summons. She was well aware of Pietro’s infatuation with her and had, in fact, solicited his attention, although her interest in him, as far as she could understand, was pure. She dreamed of beginning a career as a solo cellist. Therefore, she had sought a mentor, a guide who was not only an inciteful and inspiring musician but also well connected in the music business. And, as no one at the University was better suited for the role of mentor than Professor Albanese, she had enrolled in his class. Unconsciously, in the way young girls seduce their fathers with untied shoelaces and impertinent questions, Anna conquered Pietro. The task was all too simple—she merely played her cello with every ounce of youthful energy and enthusiasm she could muster, and wrote down every last word the professor said.

There can be no doubt that she had succeeded in her conquest, for now each page of Pietro’s reading, each paragraph of his writing ended in a vision of the young cellist. But, as Marisse suspected, Pietro’s thoughts were those of a man who longed to recapture the thrill of his youth and not, as Anna had hoped, those of an impresario who had found his raison d’être in the form of an unknown artist to promote.

So Anna, carrying her massive black cello case, followed Consuela to Marisse’s dressing room where Marisse had reapplied her makeup and composed herself, and was now waiting on the couch in a white satin dressing gown.

Anna entered with a demure, if somewhat apprehensive expression on her face. “I was told you wanted to see me, Signora,” she said.

As is, perhaps, the prerogative of royalty, Marisse looked the girl up and down for a long moment without saying anything. She was as beautiful as Pietro had said. Her skin had a pale glow to it, particularly now that her face was beaded with perspiration. The girl glanced around the room at the dressing table crowded with creams and potions, wig stands, false eyelashes and other accoutrements, and the dozens of pictures of Marisse in various roles that lined the walls. Finally, when Anna began to pick nervously at her cello case and was in fact on the verge of asking if she could be excused, Marisse started to speak in a slow and resonant voice: “My husband has spoken to me about you. He says you are an extraordinary cellist.”

“Thank you, Signora,” Anna replied as the color rose in her cheeks. She was thrilled to learn that her performances at the University had so impressed the professor that he had mentioned her to his illustrious and celebrated wife. Forgetting her nervousness, Anna began to imagine what it would be like to perform in concert with the great soprano. Her mind raced through possible recital programs for cello and voice—there was the Bacchianas Brasilieras #5 by Villa Lobos, there were some da Falla songs—heedless of the subdued, almost icy expression on Marisse’s face.

Exasperated by the girl’s high spirits, Marisse began to enunciate even more clearly, “My husband speaks of you all too often, my dear. He says you are fragile, angelic—quite the little Botticelli.”

Still Anna, captivated by her fantasy, failed to hear the irony in Marisse’s voice or notice the lines of anguish in her face. “I’m flattered, Signora,” she replied enthusiastically. “Your husband is one of the greatest men I know. He is a wonderful musician and an exacting teacher.”

Marisse stood impatiently and walked to the dressing table where she poured herself a glass of water. She watched the girl in the mirror, astounded at her naiveté. Irony seemed utterly lost on this young creature who stood smiling next to her cello case. Marisse tried another approach, saying in an overly congenial voice, “Pity it’s been so long since I attended the University, my dear. I’m sure I must be quite out of touch. Tell me, is it still so common for young girls to throw themselves at their professors in the hopes of making good grades or perhaps furthering their careers?”

Anna blanched but said nothing, and Marisse continued, pleased with herself for having finally elicited an appropriate response, “Of course, men like my husband are pitifully easy to seduce. Their self-esteem takes such a battering when they reach middle age. A young student has barely to cross her legs to get their attention.”

Anna’s eyes narrowed as she finally understood the reason she had been summoned to the dressing room. She was stunned that Marisse de Cavallo, to whom she wished to attribute the wisdom and compassion of a visionary, could be so small minded and jealous. For Anna still saw the world with the blurry eyes of an idealist who could not yet distinguish the many gradations between wisdom, distress, and idiocy. Abruptly, and with the simplistic arrogance of a young woman who has yet to lose a battle, Anna turned against Marisse, dismissing her as a vain, self-centered old woman, blinded by ego, who for years must have taken her poor husband for granted. Anna’s tone was almost haughty when she replied, “We are musicians, Signora—we will make our careers with our talent. And besides, all the students are quite fond of Professor Albanese.”

Marisse whirled around to face the girl, her voice booming, “I am not concerned with all the students, my dear girl. I am speaking about you. And my husband. Do I make myself clear?”

One could not deny that Marisse, summoning up the full splendor of her station, had made herself quite clear. But it was Anna who at that moment seemed to have taken clarity far beyond the pale. In fact, her much admired translucence had turned strangely transparent, the color of ionized air. Marisse squinted in her direction, but saw little more than a shimmer of light.

Anna, seemingly unaware of her sudden transformation, was caught up in petulant self-righteousness. She was pure, after all, an artist, far above the tawdry politics of Marisse and Pietro’s marriage. “I have done nothing wrong, Signora,” she said.. “And I cannot control what your husband says or thinks about me.” With that, she gave a toss of her head, sending a flickering wave of sparks in Marisse’s direction.

Marisse sought to retain her regal bearing as she flailed helplessly at the chaos of light and shadow and exclaimed,  “Well you had better control yourself – or you will be quite sorry, my dear.”

Anna glared at Marisse for a moment, then without a word, picked up her cello and left. Marisse collapsed on the couch weeping. She, herself, did not know what she meant by her threat. What was she willing or able to do to this young girl, after all? And in the recesses of her mind, she entertained the thought that perhaps the girl was telling the truth and had done nothing wrong. It was pointless and unsatisfying to berate her, and Marisse even wondered if her husband’s affection was worth fighting for after all these years. He has become an old man, she thought. Let him amuse himself however he can. She began to weep for herself, for the relentless and cloying predictability of her career, for the inevitable transition from grand diva to mere icon that lay ahead of her, and for the slow descent into silence that would, no doubt, follow.

Anna, overwhelmed with conflicting emotions, left the opera house and headed across town to the University for rehearsal with the early music consort in which she played the viola da gamba. Because hers was a crucial part, rehearsals were scheduled late at night after the opera was over. This evening, however, in her haste to get away from the aggravating conversation with Signora de Cavallo, she forgot that the opera had ended quite early. When she arrived at the Music Department and went to the rehearsal studio, she found it empty. She wandered into the library, thinking she might read for a while to pass the time, and there, sitting alone at one of the long tables, was Pietro Albanese.

He looked up with a startled expression, like a child who has been caught daydreaming in class. “Anna,” he said, blushing at the thought that she might hear the wild thumping of his heart. “What are you doing here so soon? It’s nine thirty; the opera can’t be over already.”

Anna’s thoughts were murky and confused and no response came to her lips. She stood, pale and uncertain, in front of the professor, wondering what she might tell him. For the first time she was aware that she held the unwieldy power of revenge in her hands, although she didn’t know how or if she would use it.

“Actually, the opera ended quite suddenly this evening,” she said.

Pietro stood and led her out of the library so their conversation would not disturb the librarian who, as always, was fast asleep at her desk. “What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” she said in a tentative voice, still unsure what role she was meant to play in the drama unfolding around her. “Someone screamed, there was a commotion, then the stage manager came out and told everyone to go home.”

“Why on earth? Pietro asked. “What was the matter? Who screamed?”

Anna looked away for a moment, letting his questions reverberate down the dark corridor until a stillness took full shape between them. “Your wife,” she said, looking squarely into his eyes.

“My wife!” he exclaimed. He grabbed Anna’s shoulders, then let go of her and took several steps toward the library, meaning to collect his things and rush to Marisse’s side. On the other hand, he reasoned, stopping to look back at Anna, if the situation required his attention, someone would surely have called. And besides, here was Anna Bensussen before him, breathless, windswept and lovely. “But why?” he asked.

“That’s just it,” said the girl. “Nothing anyone could see, except…” She paused once more, this time for sheer enjoyment of the dramatic effect.

“Except what?” he asked.

“She called me into her dressing room—“ Anna noticed how intently he was listening to her, and how his fair complexion and wide eyes gave expression to his every emotion despite any attempt he might make to conceal his thoughts. “—and she warned me to stay away from you.”

At this, Pietro blushed as deeply as a man might blush, to the very tips of his ears, to his fingertips.

“I told her I had done nothing wrong,” she said gazing at him. He was startling to look at, she thought, so vulnerable, so sensitive for a man. She felt a sympathy for him she hadn’t felt before.

He met her gaze. “My wife can be a troublesome woman,” he murmured. “She is going through a difficult time, but she means well.”

They stood only a foot apart, Anna marveling at the impermanence of all things—how even a marriage of twenty odd years might, in an instant, come to an end, while the professor, sure that each moment he stood there in the corridor would leave an indelible mark on his life, pondered the gentle beauty he saw in Anna’s face.

“She is a commanding woman,” Anna said softly.

Pietro took her hands in his. “With a commanding voice,” he murmured.

Once again, Anna felt as if she were being subsumed into an existence much larger and more powerful than her own. And Pietro too, although he would swear he hadn’t the slightest intention of betraying his wife, believed something immutable was drawing him to his young student. Anna heard a painful ringing in her ears as, in a fugue of colliding motives and desires, adrenaline and curiosity, lust and revenge, they kissed.

Pietro Albanese returned home well before midnight, having left Anna and the other students still in the middle of their rehearsal, and found his wife in bed, propped up on pillows and reading a magazine. Unskilled as he was in the art of subterfuge, he wished he could simply blurt out the events of his evening, not because he wanted to beg his wife’s forgiveness; rather he did not want the burden of having to conceal the truth. Nonetheless, he was not ready to face the consequences of such a confession and instead did his best to create a false impression by asking in an offhand manner, as he removed his shoes and socks, how her performance had gone.

Marisse did not look up from her magazine. She had known from the first sound of his key in the lock that he had seen the girl. His early return, especially after having reminded her at breakfast that he would not be home until late, was clear indication of a troubled conscience. Her intuition was further confirmed by the awkward way he now stood in the middle of the bedroom floor, bending over from the waist to untie his shoes. For if his work had so exhausted him that he was compelled to leave off early, he would surely have fallen onto the bed still wearing his shoes and, as usual, she would have been obliged to ask him to take them off.

Pietro was in grave distress as he watched his wife turn the pages of her magazine, for he no longer knew what he wanted. No sooner had he kissed Anna, than he had begun to envision all the logical steps that would follow, the most preposterous involving the logistics of consummating their desire. Anna, after all, lived in a dormitory with several other young students, hardly the proper setting for a tryst with an eminent and beloved professor. Certainly he could not bring her to the bed he shared with Marisse, and the thought of going to a hotel offended Pietro’s refined sensibilities. Besides, the girl was bound to reconsider the thirty-five year difference in their ages, if not immediately, then perhaps when his overworked mind had grown brittle with age and could no longer differentiate between Bach and Vivaldi. When he had become infirm and most needed the gentle hands of his beloved, she would be, no doubt, at the height of her career, far too busy to dote on an aging professor emeritus. And what about his wife, Marisse, whom he had loved, more or less, for twenty-five years?

“She doesn’t love you,” Marisse said, looking up from her magazine.

“What?” Pietro jumped at the sound of her voice.

“The cellist, the young girl. She only wants you to help with her career.”

“My dear, but no one—I—well, what are you—“ Pietro sputtered.

“Don’t be an old fool,” Marisse interjected, sparing him the need to improvise a speech about his solitary evening in the library. “And do not make a fool of me. You have been obsessed with this girl for weeks. I may be old, myself, but I am neither deaf nor blind. I’ve seen the melancholy that spills across your face, heard your pitiful sighs. Have you no better sense? She is only a child!” Although Marisse had intended to maintain a restrained and dignified bearing when she spoke to her husband, the mere sensation of speaking called forth a torrent of emotion that flowed out of her once again with an unexpected power and lifted her to her feet.

Pietro saw there was no point in concealing anything from his wife. “Very well,” he said. “I will tell you. This evening I kissed her, but it was the first and only time.”

Marisse took an audible breath but did not reply. Pietro paced slowly from one end of the room to the other before he continued. “She came to the library—she was terribly upset. She said you cried out in the middle of the performance. But why, Marisse? Because of the girl you were jealous? I hadn’t the slightest intention… Well, perhaps she appeared in a fantasy, maybe in a dream I might have… But why not, my dear? True she is rather young, but she is entrancing, fresh, unique. After all, anyone can read a poem, anyone can arouse their senses at the sound of a beautiful voice. To stand on a precipice and feel the urge to jump is far different from the actuality of jumping.” Here Pietro was forced to stop and catch his breath, worried that his wife might question his analogy inasmuch as kissing the girl placed him, if not over the edge of the precipice, precariously close.

Marisse, however, was not paying attention to her husband’s analogies. His words had little meaning just as his questions had no answers. There were no simple explanations—not the girl’s youth, not the threat of infidelity, not the inevitability of her own approaching decline, only a relentless, volcanic accumulation of frustrations and desires. To explain an irrational act was, by definition, impossible, yet Pietro stood before her like a mathematician, expecting her to formulate a simple, logical equation. She opened her mouth, but her thoughts were too large to translate into words. Instead, she took a long and deep breath, as if she meant to inhale the entire room and everything in it.

The curtains fluttered, a sheaf of papers swirled up off the nightstand. Pietro was once again awed and aroused by his wife’s unbridled passion for expressing what was inexpressible. But thinking she was about to scream again and knowing well the power of her voice, he braced himself and clapped his hands to his ears.