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The box just opposite to them was Radetzky's, and was occupied by his adjutant. Observant of everything which looked like a manifestation or a demonstration, they threw threatening glances at the color constellation, and the confidant of Radetzky immediately sent for Salvani. The impresario appeared, excited and trembling. Suppose the adjutant should forbid the performance?
She went out, and the next day the rehearsals began for the new opera, the first performance of which was to take place on the 15th of May, 1848. The night of the 15th of May arrived, and both Salvani and Ticellini were very nervous about the first performance of the "Queen of Flowers."
While the two friends were sitting at the piano, and Ticellini marked several songs and duets, a knock was heard. "No one can enter," said Salvani, springing up; "we wish to be alone." "Oh, how polite!" exclaimed a clear, bright voice, and as Salvani and Ticellini looked up in surprise they uttered a cry of astonishment: "Luciola!" La Luciola was very beautiful.
At length, on the morning of the 15th, the demand became heavier, and after a few boxes had been taken, a negro appeared at the box-office about eleven o'clock, and pointed at a pack of tickets. "Ah your master desires a box?" asked Salvani, who did not disdain on special days to take charge of the box-office.
"We I " began Salvani, stammering. "My dear impresario," interrupted La Luciola, laughing, "let us make short work of it. I will tell you why I came, and, in the meantime, you can collect your thoughts. Well, then, I am growing tired at La Scala; Donizetti, Bellini, and whatever other names your great composers bear, are very good fellows, but, you know, toujours perdrix."
Salvani, the impresario of the Scala and a friend of Ticellini, had engaged La Luciola, the star of the opera at Naples, for Milan, and the maestro had not been able to find a libretto.
He was lord there at the time that your once proud but now loathsome Florence had such a lesson given to its frenzy at the battle of Arbia." "And what is his name?" inquired Dante. "Salvani," returned the limner. "He is here, because he had the presumption to think that he could hold Sienna in the hollow of his hand. Fifty years has he paced in this manner. Such is the punishment for audacity."
When Ticellini appeared, Salvani triumphantly pointed to the pile of bank-notes, and when the maestro anxiously remarked that he thought it must be a trick of one of his rivals to ruin him, the impresario coolly said: "Ticellini, would you be able to raise 6,000 lire to annihilate Gioberto and Palmerelli?" The composer was silent. This kind of logic convinced him.
Salvani, of course, was at first distrustful, but after he assured himself that there was nothing treasonable in it, he put the manuscript in his pocket and went to see the censor. The censor received Salvani cordially, and taking his ominous red pencil in his hand, he glanced over the libretto.
When the eventful evening came, the Scala looked magnificent. For the first time since the Austrian occupation, all the aristocratic ladies appeared in full dress. Salvani, as well as the maestro, looked wonderingly at the audience. Very soon, however, their wonder changed to curiosity, for the toilets of the ladies were arranged in a peculiar way.
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