1 - Interrupted Aria Read Online Free PDF

with a ribbon. At first I was sorry to see the girl disappear into the milling crowd as soon as she took my coin, then realized there were many other sights to see.
    The traffic on the canal multiplied. A long gondola strung with colored lanterns passed by, then another. The bodies of the jet black boats blended so completely with the night it seemed as if the laughing passengers were borne magically along in a ring of fairy lights. The back of my neck tingled with excitement, and my ears picked up the sounds of a brass band. Almost running, I followed the blaring strains until I reached the piazza.
    Bursting through the archway under the mammoth clock tower, I was instantly immersed in a swirling flood of masked merrymakers. A Harlequin in a conical hat and diamond patterned tunic was cavorting with his Columbine; they jostled me from behind and nearly pushed me down. A masked woman in gypsy dress and a tangled wig laughed and grabbed my arm. She smelled of stale sweat masked by flowery perfume. After whispering, “Careful, my pretty one,” she surprised me by sticking her tongue in my ear. Her cloak was thrown back over her shoulders so I could look down the bodice that barely covered her breasts and see the rouge she had applied to her nipples. I pushed her away. A quick tumble with a prostitute was not how I wanted to spend my first night back in Venice.
    Many assume that castrati lack sexuality or suppose that we are fit only to play the girl for those of our own sex who enjoy that kind of skirmish. The truth of it is more complex. Our sexual appetites are as varied as those of other men. At San Remo, there had been several soft, exceedingly corpulent maestros whom we couldn’t imagine having amorous thoughts toward anyone. However, we had also heard many stories of the famous singers who managed to keep their noble patrons, male or female according to their tastes, as satisfied in the bedroom as they did in the opera house. Only a few years before, a popular Neapolitan castrato had nearly succumbed to pneumonia after being forced to spend the night on a rain-drenched balcony. He had escaped through the window only seconds before his mistress’ husband burst through her bedroom door with a cocked pistol.
    I believe women feel safe with us. They have no fear of impregnation, and most of us have peaceful, equable temperaments. For myself, I had learned that I had to cultivate my desires very carefully if they were to become bold and insistent enough to complete the act of love. I couldn’t squander my potency in the typical schoolboy method of assuaging these appetites, or I might find myself unable to pursue a romantic encounter should the opportunity arise. Thus I found myself continuously simmering with the first bubbles of desire, but rarely coming to the full boil. I was always looking for the woman who could turn up that flame, but fears of being mocked over my mutilation or not being able to satisfy held me back.
    After warming my hands at a flaming brazier, I made a circuit of the huge piazza, trying to decide what to do first. Everywhere was the bauta in all its many forms. Some masks had wickedly curving, beaklike noses or grotesquely ridged eye sockets, but most were simple black or white molds of leather designed to keep the wearer’s identity a secret. The women favored a plain velvet oval of a mask called a moretta , which covered their faces from forehead to chin and had slits for the eyes and nose. The wearer held the mask in place by gripping a small knob on the back of the mask with her teeth. I was pushing through a gaudy throng that displayed all these masks and more when I spied a strongman performing marvelous feats to the roll of a snare drum.
    The muscular giant on the trestle stage wore a molting leopard skin, no doubt his humble homage to the legendary Hercules. I watched in awe as he tossed huge iron dumbbells around as if they were children’s toys. Then, with many grunts and groans, he