acts the same artificial and passionate existence. You cannot play with
fire without being burnt. You cannot say twenty times a month: "I love
you!" to the sighing of a flute or the tremolos of a violin, without at
last being caught by the emotion of your own voice. In course of time,
passion awoke in the surrounding harmonies, the rhythmical surprises,
the gorgeousness of costume and scenery. It was wafted to them through
the window that Elsa and Lohengrin threw wide open on a night vibrating
with sound and luminousness:

"Come let us breathe the intoxicating perfumes."

It slipped in between the white columns of the Capulets' balcony, where
Romeo and Juliet linger in the dawning light of day:

"It was the nightingale, and not the lark."

And softly it caught Faust and Marguerite in a ray of moonlight, that
rose from the rustic bench to the shutters of their little chamber, amid
the entangled ivy and blossoming roses:

"Let me once more gaze upon thy face."

Soon all Paris knew their love and became interested in it. It was the
wonder of the season. The world came to admire the two splendid stars
gently gravitating towards each other in the musical firmament of the
Opera House. At last one evening, after an enthusiastic recall, as the
curtain fell, separating the house full of noisy applause and the
stage littered with bouquets, where the white gown of Juliet swept
over scattered camellia blossoms, the two singers were seized with an
irresistible impulse, as though their love, a shade artificial, had but
awaited the emotion of a splendid success to reveal itself.

[Illustration: p077-088]

Hands were clasped, vows exchanged, vows consecrated by the distant
and persistent plaudits of the house. The two stars had made their
conjunction.

After the wedding, some time passed before they were again seen on the
stage. Then, when their holiday was ended, they reappeared in the
same piece. This reappearance was a revelation. Until then, of the two
singers, the man had been the most prized. Older and more accustomed to
the public, whose foibles and preferences he had studied, he held the
pit and boxes under the spell of his voice. Beside him, the other one
seemed but an admirably gifted pupil, the promise of a future genius;
but her voice was young and had angles in it, just as her shoulders were
too slight and thin. And when on her return she appeared in one of her
former parts, and the full rich, powerful sound po