star opening the vistas above; have you never mounted on that beam
which guides you to the sky, to the heart of the first causes which
move the worlds?"

To their hearers, the Duke and Capraja were playing a game of which
the premises were unknown.

"Genovese's voice thrills through every fibre," said Capraja.

"And la Tinti's fires the blood," replied the Duke.

"What a paraphrase of happy love is that _cavatina_!" Capraja went on.
"Ah! Rossini was young when he wrote that interpretation of
effervescent ecstasy. My heart filled with renewed blood, a thousand
cravings tingled in my veins. Never have sounds more angelic delivered
me more completely from my earthly bonds! Never did the fairy wave
more beautiful arms, smile more invitingly, lift her tunic more
cunningly to display an ankle, raising the curtain that hides my other
life!"

"To-morrow, my old friend," replied Cataneo, "you shall ride on the
back of a dazzling, white swan, who will show you the loveliest land
there is; you shall see the spring-time as children see it. Your heart
shall open to the radiance of a new sun; you shall sleep on crimson
silk, under the gaze of a Madonna; you shall feel like a happy lover
gently kissed by a nymph whose bare feet you still may see, but who is
about to vanish. That swan will be the voice of Genovese, if he can
unite it to its Leda, the voice of Clarina. To-morrow night we are to
hear _Mose_, the grandest opera produced by Italy's greatest genius."