was a room of very moderate size, for
the audience was necessarily very small; in fact, the stage was larger
than the auditorium. The play took place in the afternoon, and there was
no artificial light; many of the operatic performances in Italy, indeed,
took place in the open air.

Yet, though the time of day and the natural light deprived the theatre
of much of the strangeness and glamour with which it is usually
associated, and which so much impress a youth who sees it for the first
time, the effect of the first performance upon Mark was very remarkable.
He was seated immediately behind the Prince. Far from being delighted
with the play, he was overpowered as it went on by an intense melancholy
horror. When the violins, the flutes, and the fifes began the overture,
a new sense seemed given to him, which was not pleasure but the
intensest dread. If the singing of the Signorina had been a shock to
him, accustomed as he was only to the solemn singing of his childhood,
what must this elfish, weird, melodious music have seemed, full of gay
and careless life, and of artless unconscious airs which yet were
miracles of art? He sat, terrified at these delicious sounds, as though
this world of music without thought or conscience were a wicked thing.
The shrill notes of the fifes, the long tremulous vibration of the
strings, seemed to draw his heart after them. Wherever this wizard call
might lead him it seemed he would have to follow the alluring chords.

But when the acting began his terror became more intense. The grotesque
figures seemed to him those of devils, or at the best of fantastic imps
or gnomes. He could understand nothing of the dialogue, but the
gestures, the laughter, the wild singing, were shocking to him. When the
Signorina appeared, the strange intensity of her colour, the brilliancy
of her eyes, and what seemed to him the freedom of her gestures and the
boldness of her bewitching glances, far from delighting, as they seemed
to do all the others, made him ready to weep with shame and grief. He
sank back in his seat to avoid the notice of the Prince, who, indeed,
was too much absorbed in the music and the acting to remember him.

The beauty of the music only added to his despair; had it been less
lovely, had the acting not forced now and then a glance of admiring
wonder or struck a note of high-toned touching pathos even, it would not
all have seemed so much the work of evil. When the comedy was over he
cre