plaything of some strange hallucination, and thought of Gambara and
Giardini as two abstractions.

Meanwhile, after a last piece of buffoonery from the deaf conductor in
reply to Gambara, the company had broken up laughing loudly. Giardini
went off to make coffee, which he begged the select few to accept, and
his wife cleared the table. The Count, sitting near the stove between
Marianna and Gambara, was in the very position which the mad musician
thought most desirable, with sensuousness on one side and idealism on
the other. Gambara finding himself for the first time in the society
of a man who did not laugh at him to his face, soon diverged from
generalities to talk of himself, of his life, his work, and the
musical regeneration of which he believed himself to be the Messiah.

"Listen," said he, "you who so far have not insulted me. I will tell
you the story of my life; not to make a boast of my perseverance,
which is no virtue of mine, but to the greater glory of Him who has
given me strength. You seem kind and pious; if you do not believe in
me at least you will pity me. Pity is human; faith comes from God."

Andrea turned and drew back under his chair the foot that had been
seeking that of the fair Marianna, fixing his eyes on her while
listening to Gambara.



"I was born at Cremona, the son of an instrument maker, a fairly good
performer and an even better composer," the musician began. "Thus at
an early age I had mastered the laws of musical construction in its
twofold aspects, the material and the spiritual; and as an inquisitive