“These two young men are mad!” said the doctor.

“As to the Prince,” said the Duchess, “trust me to cure him.  As to Vendramin, if he cannot understand this sublime music, he is perhaps incurable.”

“If you would but tell me the cause of their madness, I could cure them,” said the Frenchman.

“And since when have great physicians ceased to read men’s minds?” said she, jestingly.

The ballet was long since ended; the second act of Mose was beginning.  The pit was perfectly attentive.  A rumor had got abroad that Duke Cataneo had lectured Genovese, representing to him what injury he was doing to Clarina, the diva of the day.  The second act would certainly be magnificent.

“The Egyptian Prince and his father are on the stage,” said the Duchess.  “They have yielded once more, though insulting the Hebrews, but they are trembling with rage.  The father congratulates himself on his son’s approaching marriage, and the son is in despair at this fresh obstacle, though it only increases his love, to which everything is opposed.  Genovese and Carthagenova are singing admirably.  As you see, the tenor is making his peace with the house.  How well he brings out the beauty of the music!  The phrase given out by the son on the tonic, and repeated by the father on the dominant, is all in character with the simple, serious scheme which prevails throughout the score; the sobriety of it makes the endless variety of the music all the more wonderful.  All Egypt is there.

“I do not believe that there is in modern music a composition more perfectly noble.  The solemn and majestic paternity of a king is fully expressed in that magnificent theme, in harmony with the grand style that stamps the opera throughout.  The idea of a Pharaoh’s son pouring out his sorrows on his father’s bosom could surely not be more admirably represented than in this grand imagery.  Do you not feel a sense of the splendor we are wont to attribute to that monarch of antiquity?”

“It is indeed sublime music,” said the Frenchman.

“The air Pace mia smarrita, which the Queen will now sing, is one of those bravura songs which every composer is compelled to introduce, though they mar the general scheme of the work; but an opera would as often as not never see the light, if the prima donna’s vanity were not duly flattered.  Still, this musical ‘sop’ is so fine in itself that it is performed as written, on every stage; it is so brilliant that the leading lady does not substitute her favorite show piece, as is very commonly done in operas.