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affections, and for all that she felt they were linked in their souls, still they barely spoke. There was never a chance—someone was always with them. She thought they had an understanding, and that he must love her, but he had never said he did, nor admitted that he wished to marry her. There could be no harm in marrying—there was nothing to prevent them—and yet somehow she was afraid to make it come to that. Her mother would say she was too young. Dorotea Bussani had married at fifteen and she was happy enough, but Dorotea had been poor.
    Benucci was not like Bussani. Anna was afraid he might not love her. When they were with others he pretended as if she were nothing to him, and at times it did not seem like pretending. So shestayed quiet. She was confused and uncertain. Her doubts sometimes were as strong as her longing, and she had nobody to talk to, no confidante. She would not see him for four or five months, and after that perhaps never again. Perhaps he would not wish to return.
    But then came a sudden security. The whole opera buffa company from La Scala was engaged to sing their Salieri opera in Venice, for Carnival. They would go there after Benucci had returned from Rome. He would sing it with them. Everything would fit perfectly. Though the thought of being apart from him for almost half a year was unbearable, Anna would be reunited with him in Venice, in the richest and most decadent city that had ever been born, and when he saw her again she would be worldly herself, and beautiful and proud, and he would be amazed and enchanted.
    “May I write you?” she asked him. It was their last performance before he departed. They were standing backstage during the duet between Mandini and Dorotea.
    “Write me?” He smiled. “What would you say?”
    She bit her lip. “Why, what people usually say in letters.”
    He sighed and touched her waist. “I don’t like letters.”
    “Oh,” she said, and moved away. Then Dorotea came crashing off the stage wanting to be complimented.
    Anna wished to cry, but there was nowhere to do so safely. But when she went into the compartment with Benucci at the end of the last act, for the last time, he held and kissed her as usual, and whispered into her ear that he would see her in Venice, and she could not help herself, she abandoned her heart. He contained all her life. They would see each other in Venice, and in Venice she would be changed, changed almost beyond recognition. She would persuade her mother to give her more freedom.
    After Benucci left, Stefano Mandini was her primo buffo. He was expert and precise on stage, sang clearly, acted well, never had to be told anything twice. They were doing a new opera by Sarti,and there was no closet, no reason to be alone together. Mandini was true to his wife. Anna could relax with him. Her thoughts were no longer frenetic and confused. She did not have to be always censuring her feelings. She slept more soundly and spoke more easily with the other singers. The five months passed almost without her noticing. They left Milan and arrived in Venice a few weeks before Benucci was due there, and she thought, as she gazed upon that beautiful city, a city like a painting, that perhaps she did not need to live for him after all. She was almost eighteen, and had made more money in the past year than she’d ever dreamed.
    One night, soon after their arrival in Venice, Anna was out with Michael Kelly and her new chaperone when she noticed a girl playing guitar and singing popular songs in a corner of one of the casinos. The girl was tall, with a long face, a pointed chin, and a dark complexion. The Carnival mask she wore was unadorned, and her dress plain. Anna could not tell if she was pretty. But the voice was lovely.
    “How do you do?” Anna asked warmly, approaching and introducing herself. The girl offered a shy smile and said she knew who Anna was.
    Anna laughed. “Do you?”
    “Everyone knows you.”
    “They think they do.