ve with her, and had spoken the truth on the stage,
the land of falsehood.

"_Poverino!_" she murmured, stroking the Prince's hand under the table.

"By all that is holy!" cried Capraja, "will you tell me what score you
are reading at this moment--murdering Rossini? Pray inform us what you
are thinking about, what demon is struggling in your throat."

"A demon!" cried Genovese, "say rather the god of music. My eyes,
like those of Saint-Cecilia, can see angels, who, pointing with their
fingers, guide me along the lines of the score which is written in
notes of fire, and I am trying to keep up with them. PER DIO! do you not
understand? The feeling that inspires me has passed into my being; it
fills my heart and my lungs; my soul and throat have but one life.

"Have you never, in a dream, listened to the most glorious strains, the
ideas of unknown composers who have made use of pure sound as nature
has hidden it in all things,--sound which we call forth, more or less
perfectly, by the instruments we employ to produce masses of various
color; but which in those dream-concerts are heard free from the
imperfections of the performers who cannot be all feeling, all soul? And
I, I give you that perfection, and you abuse me!

"You are as mad at the pit of the _Fenice_, who hissed me! I scorned the
vulgar crowd for not being able to mount with me to the heights whence
we reign over art, and I appeal to men of mark, to a Frenchman--Why, he
is gone!"

"Half an hour ago," said Vendramin.

"That is a pity. He, perhaps, would have understood me, since Italians,
lovers of art, do not--"

"On you go!" said Capraja, with a smile, and tapping lightly on the
tenor's head. "Ride off on the divine Ariosto's hippogriff; hunt down
your radiant chimera, musical visionary as you are!"

In point of fact, all the others, believing that Genovese was drunk, let
him talk without listening to him. Capraja alone had understood the case
put by the French physician.

While the wine of Cyprus was loosening every tongue, and each one was
prancing on his favorite hobby, the doctor, in a gondola, was waiting
for the Duchess, having sent her a note written by Vendramin. Massimilla
appeared in her night wrapper, so much had she been alarmed by the tone
of the Prince's farewell, and so startled by the hopes held out by the
letter.

"Madame," said the Frenchman, as he placed her in a seat and desired the
gondoliers to start, "at this moment Princ