in the cascades leaping like a flock of sheep, an idea of his passion
shared with la Tinti. In the midst of his torrent of love a rock stood
up against which the torrent broke. The Prince, like Sisyphus, was
constantly under the stone.

"What on earth does the Duke do with a violin?" he wondered. "Do I owe
this symphony to him?"

He asked Clara Tinti.

"My dear child,"--for she saw that Emilio was but a child,--"dear
child," said she, "that man, who is a hundred and eighteen in the
parish register of vice, and only forty-seven in the register of the
Church, has but one single joy left to him in life. Yes, everything is
broken, everything in him is ruin or rags; his soul, intellect, heart,
nerves,--everything in man that can supply an impulse and remind him
of heaven, either by desire or enjoyment, is bound up with music, or
rather with one of the many effects produced by music, the perfect
unison of two voices, or of a voice with the top string of his violin.
The old ape sits on my knee, takes his instrument,--he plays fairly
well,--he produces the notes, and I try to imitate them. Then, when
the long-sought-for moment comes when it is impossible to distinguish
in the body of sound which is the note on the violin and which
proceeds from my throat, the old man falls into an ecstasy, his dim
eyes light up with their last remaining fires, he is quite happy and
will roll on the floor like a drunken man.

"That is why he pays Genovese such a price. Genovese is the only tenor
whose voice occasionally sounds in unison with mine. Either we really
do sing exactly together once or twice in an evening, or the Duke