“You are our good genius!” whispered Marianna.  “I am tempted to believe that you actually inspire him; for I, who never am away from him, have never heard anything like this.”

“And Kadijah’s farewell!” cried Gambara, who sang the cavatina which he had described the day before as sublime, and which now brought tears to the eyes of the lovers, so perfectly did it express the loftiest devotion of love.

“Who can have taught you such strains?” cried the Count.

“The Spirit,” said Gambara.  “When he appears, all is fire.  I see the melodies there before me; lovely, fresh in vivid hues like flowers.  They beam on me, they ring out,—­and I listen.  But it takes a long, long time to reproduce them.”

“Some more!” said Marianna.

Gambara, who could not tire, played on without effort or antics.  He performed his overture with such skill, bringing out such rich and original musical effects, that the Count was quite dazzled, and at last believed in some magic like that commanded by Paganini and Liszt, —­a style of execution which changes every aspect of music as an art, by giving it a poetic quality far above musical inventions.

“Well, Excellenza, and can you cure him?” asked Giardini, as Andrea came out.

“I shall soon find out,” replied the Count.  “This man’s intellect has two windows; one is closed to the world, the other is open to the heavens.  The first is music, the second is poetry.  Till now he has insisted on sitting in front of the shuttered window; he must be got to the other.  It was you, Giardini, who first started me on the right track, by telling me that your client’s mind was clearer after drinking a few glasses of wine.”

“Yes,” cried the cook, “and I can see what your plan is.”

“If it is not too late to make the thunder of poetry audible to his ears, in the midst of the harmonies of some noble music, we must put him into a condition to receive it and appreciate it.  Will you help me to intoxicate Gambara, my good fellow?  Will you be none the worse for it?”

“What do you mean, Excellenza?”

Andrea went off without answering him, laughing at the acumen still left to this cracked wit.

On the following day he called for Marianna, who had spent the morning in arranging her dress,—­a simple but decent outfit, on which she had spent all her little savings.  The transformation would have destroyed the illusions of a mere dangler; but Andrea’s caprice had become a passion.  Marianna, diverted of her picturesque poverty, and looking like any ordinary woman of modest rank, inspired dreams of wedded life.

He handed her into a hackney coach, and told her of the plans he had in his head; and she approved of everything, happy in finding her admirer more lofty, more generous, more disinterested than she had dared to hope.  He took her to a little apartment, where he had allowed himself to remind her of his good offices by some of the elegant trifles which have a charm for the most virtuous women.