would never countenance a lover, lived very steadily, and still wore the old Venetian costume.  This purely-bred Venetian girl was twelve years old when Capraja first took an interest in her, and six-and-twenty when he died.  She was very fond of him, though he had never even kissed her hand or her brow, and she knew nothing whatever of the poor old nobleman’s intentions with regard to her.  The girl had at last as complete control of the old gentleman as a mother has of her child; she would tell him when he wanted clean linen; next day he would come without a shirt, and she would give him a clean one to put on in the morning.

He never looked at a woman either in the theatre or out walking.  Though he was the descendant of an old patrician family he never thought his rank worth mentioning.  But at night, after twelve, he awoke from his apathy, talked, and showed that he had seen and heard everything.  This peaceful Diogenes, quite incapable of explaining his tenets, half a Turk, half a Venetian, was thick-set, short, and fat; he had a Doge’s sharp nose, an inquisitive, satirical eye, and a discreet though smiling mouth.

When he died, it became known that he had lived in a little den near San Benedetto.  He had two million francs invested in the funds of various countries of Europe, and had left the interest untouched ever since he had first bought the securities in 1814, so the sum was now enormous, alike from the increased value of the capital and the accumulated interest.  All this money was left to the pastry-cook’s daughter.

“Genovese,” he was saying, “will do wonders.  Whether he really understands the great end of music, or acts only on instinct, I know not; but he is the first singer who ever satisfied me.  I shall not die without hearing a cadenza executed as I have heard them in my dreams, waking with a feeling as though the sounds were floating in the air.  The clear cadenza is the highest achievement of art; it is the arabesque, decorating the finest room in the house; a shade too little and it is nothing, a touch too much and all is confusion.  Its task is to awake in the soul a thousand dormant ideas; it flies up and sweeps through space, scattering seeds in the air to be taken in by our ears and blossom in our heart.  Believe me, in painting his Saint-Cecilia, Raphael gave the preference to music over poetry.  And he was right; music appeals to the heart, whereas writing is addressed to the intellect; it communicates ideas directly, like a perfume.  The singer’s voice impinges not on the mind, not on the memory of happiness, but on the first principle of thought; it stirs the elements of sensation.