artist! She had suddenly crossed the limit, which it is impossible to
define, beyond which is the abiding place of beauty. The audience was
thrilled and astonished. The plain girl with the broken voice began to
get a hold on it, to master it. And the singer's voice even did not
sound broken now; it had gained mellowness and strength. Alfredo made
his entrance; Violetta's cry of happiness almost raised that storm in
the audience known as _fanatisme_, beside which all the applause of
our northern audiences is nothing. A brief interval passed--and again
the audience were in transports. The duet began, the best thing in the
opera, in which the composer has succeeded in expressing all the
pathos of the senseless waste of youth, the final struggle of
despairing, helpless love. Caught up and carried along by the general
sympathy, with tears of artistic delight and real suffering in her
eyes, the singer let herself be borne along on the wave of passion
within her; her face was transfigured, and in the presence of the
threatening signs of fast approaching death, the words: '_Lascia mi
vivero--morir si giovane_' (let me live--to die so young!) burst from
her in such a tempest of prayer rising to heaven, that the whole
theatre shook with frenzied applause and shouts of delight.

Elena felt cold all over. Softly her hand sought Insarov's, found it,
and clasped it tightly. He responded to its pressure; but she did not
look at him, nor he at her. Very different was the clasp of hands
with which they had greeted each other in the gondola a few hours
before.

Again they glided along the Canal Grande towards their hotel. Night
had set in now, a clear, soft night. The same palaces met them, but
they seemed different. Those that were lighted up by the moon shone
with pale gold, and in this pale light all details of ornaments and