illo is
predisposed to spare a fangless snake. Michiella withdraws him from the
naked sword to the back of the stage. The terrible repudiation scene
ensues, in which Camillo casts off his wife. If it was a puzzle to one
Italian half of the audience, the other comprehended it perfectly, and
with rapture. It was thus that YOUNG ITALY had too often been treated by
the compromising, merely discontented, dallying aristocracy. Camilla
cries to him, 'Have faith in me! have faith in me! have faith in me!'
That is the sole answer to his accusations, his threats of eternal
loathing, and generally blustering sublimities. She cannot defend
herself; she only knows her innocence. He is inexorable, being the guilty
one of the two. Turning from him with crossed arms, Camilla sings:

'Mother! it is my fate that I should know Thy miseries, and in thy
footprints go. Grief treads the starry places of the earth: In thy long
track I feel who gave me birth. I am alone; a wife without a lord; My
home is with the stranger--home abhorr'd!--But that I trust to meet thy
spirit there. Mother of Sorrows! joy thou canst not share: So let me
wander in among the tombs, Among the cypresses and the withered blooms.
Thy soul is with dead suns: there let me be; A silent thing that shares
thy veil with thee.'

The wonderful viol-like trembling of the contralto tones thrilled through
the house. It was the highest homage to Vittoria that no longer any
shouts arose nothing but a prolonged murmur, as when one tells another a
tale of deep emotion, and all exclamations, all ulterior thoughts, all
gathered tenderness of sensibility, are reserved for the close, are seen
heaping for the close, like waters above a dam. The flattery of beholding
a great assembly of human creatures bound glittering in wizard
subservience to the voice of one soul, belongs to the artist, and is the
cantatrice's glory, pre-eminent over whatever poor glory this world
gives. She felt it, but she felt it as something apart. Within her was
the struggle of Italy calling to Italy: Italy's shame, her sadness, her
tortures, her quenchless hope, and the view of Freedom. It sent her blood
about her body in rebellious volumes. Once it completely strangled her
notes. She dropped the ball of her chin in her throat; paused without
ceremony; and recovered herself. Vittoria had too severe an artistic
instinct to court reality; and as much as she could she from that moment
corrected the underlinings of A