When Andrea arrived at Gambara’s lodgings, the musician rose to welcome him.

“My generous friend,” said he, with the utmost frankness, “you either took advantage, last evening, of the weakness of my brain to make a fool of me, or else your brain is no more capable of standing the test of the heady liquors of our native Latium, than mine is.  I will assume this latter hypothesis; I would rather doubt your digestion than your heart.  Be this as it may, henceforth I drink no more wine—­for ever.  The abuse of good liquor last evening led me into much guilty folly.  When I remember that I very nearly——­” He gave a glance of terror at Marianna.  “As to the wretched opera you took me to hear, I have thought it over, and it is, after all, music written on ordinary lines, a mountain of piled-up notes, verba et voces.  It is but the dregs of the nectar I can drink in deep draughts as I reproduce the heavenly music that I hear!  It is a patchwork of airs of which I could trace the origin.  The passage ‘Gloire a la Providence’ is too much like a bit of Handel; the chorus of knights is closely related to the Scotch air in La Dame Blanche; in short, if this opera is a success, it is because the music is borrowed from everybody’s—­so it ought to be popular.

“I will say good-bye to you, my dear friend.  I have had some ideas seething in my brain since the morning that only wait to soar up to God on the wings of song, but I wished to see you.  Good-bye; I must ask forgiveness of the Muse.  We shall meet at dinner to-night—­but no wine; at any rate, none for me.  I am firmly resolved—­”

“I give him up!” cried Andrea, flushing red.

“And you restore my sense of conscience,” said Marianna.  “I dared not appeal to it!  My friend, my friend, it is no fault of ours; he does not want to be cured.”

Six years after this, in January 1837, such artists as were so unlucky as to damage their wind or stringed instruments, generally took them to the Rue Froid-Manteau, to a squalid and horrible house, where, on the fifth floor, dwelt an old Italian named Gambara.

For five years past he had been left to himself, deserted by his wife; he had gone through many misfortunes.  An instrument on which he had relied to make his fortune, and which he called a Panharmonicon, had been sold by order of the Court on the public square, Place du Chatelet, together with a cartload of music paper scrawled with notes.  The day after the sale, these scores had served in the market to wrap up butter, fish, and fruit.

Thus the three grand operas of which the poor man would boast, but which an old Neapolitan cook, who was now but a patcher up of broken meats, declared to be a heap of nonsense, were scattered throughout Paris on the trucks of costermongers.  But at any rate, the landlord had got his rent and the bailiffs their expenses.