for the
coming solemnity. Having finished this, two lovely _amourettes_ came
forward, with silver vases in their hands, and hastened down the steps
to the audience, politely requesting them to furnish themes for the
great improvisatrice Corilla.

Then, returning to the altar, they threw into the urn the small scraps
of paper on which the guests has proposed themes. The harp again
resounded, and with a solemn earnestness, her face and glance still
directed upward, Corilla drew one of the little strips of paper from the
urn. Accident, or perhaps her own dexterity, had favored her.

"Sappho's lament before throwing herself from the rocks"--that was the
theme proposed.

Corilla's face immediately took an expression of sadness; her eyes
flashed with an unnatural fire; her previously raised arm fell powerless
by her side; her head, like a broken rose, sank upon her breast; her
other hand convulsively grasped the urn, and in this position she in
fact resembled an abandoned mourner, weeping over the ashes of her lost
happiness. She was now the repudiated and forsaken one who, ready to
resign her life, was brooding upon thoughts of death. And while her face
took this expression, and she, staring upon the earth before her, seemed
to be meditating upon irremediable fate, thought Corilla: "This is a
charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn
for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his
promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp,
and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso
rhyme will here be the most appropriate!"

Again she directed her gaze, with a gloomy expression, toward the
heavens, and with a violently heaving bosom, with feverishly flitting
breath, she began the lament of Sappho. Now like rattling thunder,
now like the gentle breathings of the flute, rolled this sweet and
picturesque language of Italy from her lips--like music sounded those
full, artistic rhymes, of which but few of the hearers had the least
suspicion that they came from Tasso. To improvise in the Italian
language is an easy and a grateful task! What wonder, then, that Corilla
acquitted herself so charmingly? The audience paid no attention to the
thoughts expressed; they asked not after the quintessence; they were
satisfied with the agreeable sound, without inquiring into the sense of
her words; it was their melody which was admired. They listened not
fo