Glorious Ones by Francine Prose Read Free Book Online Page B

audience will go wild over it; and their husbands will love to watch your breasts bounce and jiggle as you run across the stage in a lovesick frenzy.”
    “That was my gallant invitation to join The Glorious Ones,” sneered Vittoria. “And, if I’d only listened well, I’d have known how that bastard Flaminio was going to treat me. I’d have stayed home, even if it had meant going into a convent.
    “Oh, he was disgusting to me in those days. He acted like I was his footstool, kicked me around like some piece of garbage from the gutter. ‘Vittoria,’ he’d say, ‘get my cloak! I could teach a dog to fetch better than you! Vittoria, wash my hose. It’s the only job you’re suited for.’ ”
    “Why did you put up with it?” I asked her. “Did you love him?”
    “Love him?!” she replied. “Love that filthy pig Flaminio Scala?! Love him always jumping on me like I was a horse, riding me, in and out, in and out, off before I even knew what was happening?! That’s not love, that’s not the kind of thing that wins a woman’s heart. And I only let him keep on doing that until I was old enough to stand up for myself!
    “No, I only took it because I had no choice. I knew that if I left the troupe, I’d have to work on my back, being ridden by more men than one. That was why I fetched Flaminio’s cloak—because the money for my supper was in his pockets!”
    But I think Vittoria was fooling herself—unless, poor thing, she’d managed to forget the truth. Because I think she did love Flaminio once, with that peculiar love which women always have for their first man. And that old love was part of the web she fell into, that web Francesco and Flaminio wove around each other like maddened spiders.
    For, if she never loved him, how could she have come to hate him so much?
    “One morning,” she told me, “I woke up and decided I’d had enough. That afternoon, on stage, I listened very carefully to the applause I got; and suddenly I realized that Flaminio needed the Inamorata, the lovesick young girl. The audiences loved her like their own daughters, their sisters, themselves at an earlier age. They were so attached to her, they’d kill Flaminio if he tried to play their towns without the Inamorata.
    “At that moment, I knew I was free. ‘Flaminio,’ I said, the next time he came to my bed, ‘go jerk off.’
    “From that day on, I couldn’t stand the sight of Flaminio Scala. I couldn’t stand talking to him, or even being in the same room with him. It wasn’t some game I was playing to win his affection—believe me, it was the real thing. I’d been freed from his power; everything about him made my flesh creep. I forbade him to come near my tent; whenever I saw him, it was all I could do to keep from vomiting.
    “It was such a great change in me, Pantalone, it had to affect my acting. I couldn’t even fake it anymore. I couldn’t pretend to believe that the light in Flaminio’s beady eyes was as sweet to me as the first burst of sun after a spring rain. How could I have said such a thing with a straight face? How could I have fooled the audience into thinking I meant it?
    “So that’s why the role of the Inamorata had to change. She could no longer toss on her bed, crying for her man. So he had to begin crying for her.
    “But I wasn’t as smart as I thought, Pantalone. If I’d been a little more experienced, I’d have known that it would end the way it did. I’d have known that creep Flaminio would fall madly in love with me, that he’d lose his mind and keep pestering me to this very day!”
    I myself knew the rest of Vittoria’s story. It had been like that ever since I joined the troupe. The Captain was making a fool of himself over Vittoria. It was high comedy. Everyone laughed about it—except, of course, for that poor dwarf, who had such a crush on him that she shut her eyes to the whole thing.
    Sometimes, I think it was that madness for Vittoria which first lowered Flaminio’s