Marignan. As I went in
listlessly and took my place, the lights, the noise, the multitude of
faces, confused and dazzled me. Presently the curtain rose, and the
piece began. The opera was _I Capuletti_. I do not remember who the
singers were, I am not sure that I ever knew. To me they were Romeo and
Juliet, and I was a dweller in Verona. The story, the music, the
scenery, took a vivid hold upon my imagination. From the moment the
curtain rose, I saw only the stage, and, except that I in some sort
established a dim comparison between Romeo's sorrows and my own
disquietude of mind, I seemed to lose all recollection of time and
place, and almost of my own identity.

It seemed quite natural that that ill-fated pair of lovers should go
through life, love, wed, and die singing. And why not? Are they not airy
nothings, "born of romance, cradled in poetry, thinking other thoughts,
and doing other deeds than ours?" As they live in poetry, so may they
not with perfect fitness speak in song?

I went home in a dream, with the melodies ringing in my ears and the
story lying heavy at my heart. I passed upstairs in the dark, went over
to the window, and saw, oh joy! the light--the dear, familiar, welcome,
blessed light, streaming forth, as of old, from Hortense's
chamber window!

To thank Heaven that she was safe was my first impulse--to step out on
the balcony, and watch the light as though it were a part of herself,
was the second. I had not been there many moments when it was obscured
by a passing shadow. The window opened and she came out.

"Good-evening," she said, in her calm, clear voice. "I heard you out
here, and thought you might like to know that, thanks to your treatment
in the first instance, and such care as I have been able since to give
it, my hand is once more in working order."

"You are kind to come out and tell me so," I said. "I had no hope of
seeing you to-night. How long is it since you arrived?"

"About two hours," she replied, carelessly.

"And you have been nearly three weeks away!"

"Have I?" said she, leaning her cheek upon her hand, and looking up
dreamily into the night. "I did not count the days."

"That proves you passed them happily," I said; not without some secret
bitterness.

"Happily!" she echoed. "What is happiness?"

"A word that we all translate differently," I replied.

"And your own reading of it?" she said, interrogatively.

I hesitated.

"Do you inquire what is my need, ind