A Dancer in Darkness by David Stacton

Amalfi would have found the position demeaning. Antonio did not. He had a great many little skills which, since he was a gentleman, were dignified into accomplishments, and they came in handy when it came to contriving a pageant, the seating of a banquet, or the entertainment that was to follow afterwards.
    The Duchess, like most gentlewomen and all children, thought the world came ready-made. She wandered through the world a little like Eve through Paradise before the Fall, and because everything was there, it never occurred to her to ask where it had come from. Courtiers were as matter of fact to her as trees.
    But Antonio had worked hard to prepare this evening for her, and moreover he had enjoyed the work, for even as a child he had had a passion for the dance.
    As a child, his enthusiasm had seemed amusing. But as he grew up, his skill merely became something unbecoming to a gentleman, so he put it away, like any other toy. But we never put away our toys for good. The dance was something that helped him to transcend himself. Once, on the deserted, wind-swept beach below Livorno, he had come across some gypsies huddled round a camp-fire, and they had let him dance with them. They had even cheered him on. It was the highest and most impersonal pleasure he had ever known. Yet he preferred that this passion of his remain unknown, and if it showed at all, it showed in the tight, smoothly defined precision of his calves.
    But now, preparing for the Duchess’s entertainment, hethrew himself wholeheartedly into the ballet which was to crown the evening. It was a Silvae, with court ladies for nymphs, courtiers for satyrs, the Duchess, Daphne, and Antonio, Apollo. He made certain that her steps would be easy, so she need not rehearse; but he did not know why he chose the part of Apollo for himself.
    The dance was to be held in the great hall. He held not the customary one rehearsal, but five, and those serious ones; and he was still rehearsing as servants carried in trees in tubs to turn the room into a mock forest. The courtiers were taken aback, but then amused. After all, their lives were dull enough. For them a little exertion was a novelty. Antonio despaired of ever forcing them to dance at all. Indeed, they were so heavily dressed that if they could just keep to their positions and figures he would be satisfied.
    He threw himself into his own role until sweat poured down his face, which was scarcely seemly. In the eyes of the others he was demeaning himself to the rank of a professional, a street player or a gypsy. He did not notice. He was too flushed.
    Just before the performance he checked the hall for the last time. Trees stood about among the statuary, the tall fluffy oranges of Calabria, and a bush of laurel at the far end of the room, behind which the musicians had taken up their stations. It seemed to him that he had never looked better. He was wrong. For at whatever we do best, it is in that we give ourselves away. They were always a surprise to him. He did not know his own feelings until he had danced them out.
    The Duchess reached the foot of the main stair, escorted by courtiers, and moved towards the dais at which she and they were to sit. The musicians struck up. It was a prelude designed to represent the end of winter and the coming of spring, on the recorder, lute, viol, and cembalo. Snow dripped. Ice cracked. The first water ran through the cembalo, and buds popped within the lute.
    There came then a gracious aria, a chiming verse by the Court Poet, full of death, morbidezza, winter, and spring. As the chorus took it up the court ladies, disguised as the nine muses, issued forward in a ragged clump. Their only virtue was that they were young girls. Muses emphatically they were not.Antonio sprang into view, striking a pasteboard lute, and drew them to and fro like a swarm of bees. He forgot how ungainly they were. The music apostrophized each of them, and then, with a stroke of his lute, he made them