fulness and fire of her singing struck a note of grateful remembered
delight. This is what the great voice does for us. It rarely astonishes
our ears. It illumines our souls, as you see the lightning make the
unintelligible craving darkness leap into long mountain ridges, and
twisting vales, and spires of cities, and inner recesses of light within
light, rose-like, toward a central core of violet heat.

At the rising of the curtain the knights of the plains, Rudolfo,
Romualdo, Arnoldo, and others, who were conspiring to overthrow Count
Orso at the time when Camillo's folly ruined all, assemble to deplore
Camilla's banishment, and show, bereft of her, their helplessness and
indecision. They utter contempt of Camillo, who is this day to be
Pontifically divorced from his wife to espouse the detested Michiella.
His taste is not admired.

They pass off. Camillo appears. He is, as he knows, little better than
a pensioner in Count Orso's household. He holds his lands on sufferance.
His faculties are paralyzed. He is on the first smooth shoulder-slope of
the cataract. He knows that not only was his jealousy of his wife
groundless, but it was forced by a spleenful pride. What is there to do?
Nothing, save resignedly to prepare for his divorce from the conspiratrix
Camilla and espousals with Michiella. The cup is bitter, and his song is
mournful. He does the rarest thing a man will do in such a predicament--
he acknowledges that he is going to get his deserts. The faithfulness
and purity of Camilla have struck his inner consciousness. He knows not
where she may be. He has secretly sent messengers in all directions to
seek her, and recover her, and obtain her pardon: in vain. It is as
well, perhaps, that he should never see her more. Accursed, he has cast
off his sweetest friend. The craven heart could never beat in unison
with hers.