“Thanks to you, I have been transported to the glorious land of dreams where our senses expand, and the world works on a scale which is gigantic as compared with man.”

He was silent for a space.

“I am trembling still,” said the ill-starred artist, “from the four bars of cymbals which pierced to my marrow as they opened that short, abrupt introduction with its solo for trombone, its flutes, oboes, and clarionet, all suggesting the most fantastic effects of color.  The andante in C minor is a foretaste of the subject of the evocation of the ghosts in the abbey, and gives grandeur to the scene by anticipating the spiritual struggle.  I shivered.”

Gambara pressed the keys with a firm hand and expanded Meyerbeer’s theme in a masterly fantasia, a sort of outpouring of his soul after the manner of Liszt.  It was no longer the piano, it was a whole orchestra that they heard; the very genius of music rose before them.

“That was worthy of Mozart!” he exclaimed.  “See how that German can handle his chords, and through what masterly modulations he raises the image of terror to come to the dominant C. I can hear all hell in it!

“The curtain rises.  What do I see?  The only scene to which we gave the epithet infernal:  an orgy of knights in Sicily.  In that chorus in F every human passion is unchained in a bacchanalian allegro.  Every thread by which the devil holds us is pulled.  Yes, that is the sort of glee that comes over men when they dance on the edge of a precipice; they make themselves giddy.  What go there is in that chorus!

“Against that chorus—­the reality of life—­the simple life of every-day virtue stands out in the air, in G minor, sung by Raimbaut.  For a moment it refreshed my spirit to hear the simple fellow, representative of verdurous and fruitful Normandy, which he brings to Robert’s mind in the midst of his drunkenness.  The sweet influence of his beloved native land lends a touch of tender color to this gloomy opening.

“Then comes the wonderful air in C major, supported by the chorus in C minor, so expressive of the subject. ‘Je suis Robert!’ he immediately breaks out.  The wrath of the prince, insulted by his vassal, is already more than natural anger; but it will die away, for memories of his childhood come to him, with Alice, in the bright and graceful allegro in A major.

“Can you not hear the cries of the innocent dragged into this infernal drama,—­a persecuted creature? ‘Non, non,’” sang Gambara, who made the consumptive piano sing.  “His native land and tender emotions have come back to him; his childhood and its memories have blossomed anew in Robert’s heart.  And now his mother’s shade rises up, bringing with it soothing religious thoughts.  It is religion that lives in that beautiful song in E major, with its wonderful harmonic and melodic progression in the words: 

  “Car dans les cieux, comme sur la terre,
  Sa mere va prier pour lui.