Then, returning to the altar, they threw into the urn the small scraps of paper on which the guests has proposed themes.  The harp again resounded, and with a solemn earnestness, her face and glance still directed upward, Corilla drew one of the little strips of paper from the urn.  Accident, or perhaps her own dexterity, had favored her.

“Sappho’s lament before throwing herself from the rocks”—­that was the theme proposed.

Corilla’s face immediately took an expression of sadness; her eyes flashed with an unnatural fire; her previously raised arm fell powerless by her side; her head, like a broken rose, sank upon her breast; her other hand convulsively grasped the urn, and in this position she in fact resembled an abandoned mourner, weeping over the ashes of her lost happiness.  She was now the repudiated and forsaken one who, ready to resign her life, was brooding upon thoughts of death.  And while her face took this expression, and she, staring upon the earth before her, seemed to be meditating upon irremediable fate, thought Corilla:  “This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me.  I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper.  This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance.  Besides, the Tasso rhyme will here be the most appropriate!”

Again she directed her gaze, with a gloomy expression, toward the heavens, and with a violently heaving bosom, with feverishly flitting breath, she began the lament of Sappho.  Now like rattling thunder, now like the gentle breathings of the flute, rolled this sweet and picturesque language of Italy from her lips—­like music sounded those full, artistic rhymes, of which but few of the hearers had the least suspicion that they came from Tasso.  To improvise in the Italian language is an easy and a grateful task!  What wonder, then, that Corilla acquitted herself so charmingly?  The audience paid no attention to the thoughts expressed; they asked not after the quintessence; they were satisfied with the agreeable sound, without inquiring into the sense of her words; it was their melody which was admired.  They listened not for the thought, but only for the rhyme, and with ecstatic smiles and admiring glances they nodded to each other when, thanks to the studies which Corilla had made in Tasso, Marino, and Ariosto, she seemed of herself to find rhymes for the most difficult words.

An immense storm of applause resounded when she ended; and as if awakening from an intoxicating ecstasy, Corilla glanced around with an expression of astonishment on her features; she looked around as if she knew not whence she came, and in what strange surroundings she now found herself.

After a short pause, which Carlo filled out with his harp, she again put her hand into the urn and drew out a new theme; again the inspiration seemed to pass over her, and the holy Whitsuntide of her muse to be renewed.  Constantly more and more stormily resounded the plaudits of her hearers; it was like a continued thunder of enthusiasm, a real salvo of joy.  It animated Corilla to new improvisations; she again and again recurred to the urn, drawing forth new themes, and seemed to be absolutely inexhaustible.