ake to learn to play on the violin? Hear, and despair, ye
who would bend the bow to which that of Ulysses was a plaything, "Twelve
hours a day for twenty years together!" Can a man, then, who plays the
barbiton be always playing also with his little ones? No, Pisani; often,
with the keen susceptibility of childhood, poor Viola had stolen from
the room to weep at the thought that thou didst not love her. And yet,
underneath this outward abstraction of the artist, the natural fondness
flowed all the same; and as she grew up, the dreamer had understood the
dreamer. And now, shut out from all fame himself; to be forbidden to
hail even his daughter's fame!--and that daughter herself to be in
the conspiracy against him! Sharper than the serpent's tooth was the
ingratitude, and sharper than the serpent's tooth was the wail of the
pitying barbiton!

The eventful hour is come. Viola is gone to the theatre,--her mother
with her. The indignant musician remains at home. Gionetta bursts into
the room: my Lord Cardinal's carriage is at the door,--the Padrone is
sent for. He must lay aside his violin; he must put on his brocade coat
and his lace ruffles. Here they are,--quick, quick! And quick rolls the
gilded coach, and majestic sits the driver, and statelily prance the
steeds. Poor Pisani is lost in a mist of uncomfortable amaze. He arrives
at the theatre; he descends at the great door; he turns round and
round, and looks about him and about: he misses something,--where is the
violin? Alas! his soul, his voice, his self of self, is left behind! It
is but an automaton that the lackeys conduct up the stairs, through the
tier, into the Cardinal's box. But then, what bursts upon him! Does he
dream? The first act is over (they did not send for him till success
seemed no longer doubtful); the first act has decided all. He feels THAT
by the electric sympathy which ever the one heart has at once with
a vast audience. He feels it by the breathless stillness of that
multitude; he feels it even by the lifted finger of the Cardinal. He
sees his Viola on the stage, radiant in her robes and gems,--he hears
her voice thrilling through the single heart of the thousands! But the
scene, the part, the music! It is his other child,--his immortal child;
the spirit-infant of his soul; his darling of many years of patient
obscurity and pining genius; his masterpiece; his opera of the Siren!

This, then, was the mystery that had so galled him,--this the ca