She leaned back upon the pillows and breathed audibly, exhausted by her wild passion.  The king looked at her with wonder.  She was to him a rare and precious work of art, something to be studied and worshipped.  Her alluring beauty, her impetuous, uncontrolled passions, her bold sincerity, were all attractions, and he felt himself under the spell of her enchantments.  Let her rail and swear to be revenged on the barbarian.  The king heard her not; a simple gentleman stood before her; a man who felt that Barbarina was right, and who confessed to himself that the king had forgotten, in her rude seizure, that this Barbarina was a woman—­forgotten that he, in all his relations with women, should be only a cavalier.

“Yes, yes,” said Barbarina, and an expression of triumph was painted on her lips—­“yes, my little feet will be my avengers.  The king will never more see them dance—­never more; they have cost him thousands of gold; because of them he is at variance with the noble Republic of Venice.  Well, he has seen them for the last time.  Ah! it is a light thing to subdue a province, but impossible to conquer a woman and an artiste who is resolved not to surrender.”

Frederick smiled at these proud words.

“So you will not dance before the king, and yet you have danced for him this evening?”

“Yes,” said she, raising her head proudly.  “I have proved to him that I am an artiste; only when he feels that, will it pain him never again to see me exercise my art.”

“That is, indeed, refined reasoning,” said the king.  “You danced, then, in order to make the king thirst anew for this intoxicating draught, and then deny him?  Truly, one must be an Italian to conceive this plan.”

“I am an Italian, and woe to me that I am!” A storm of tears gushed from her eyes, but in a moment, as if scorning her own weakness, she drove them back into her heart.  “Poor Italian,” she said, in a soft, low tone—­“poor child of the South, what are you doing in this cold North, amongst these frosty hearts whose icy smiles petrify art and beauty?  Ah! to think that even the Barbarina could not melt the ice-rind from their pitiful souls; to think that she displayed before them all the power and grace of her art, and they looked on with motionless hands and silent lips!  Ah! this humiliation would have killed me in Italy, because I love my people, and they understand and appreciate all that is rare and beautiful.  My heart burns with scorn and contempt for these torpid Berliners.”

“I understand you now,” said the king; “you heard no bravos, you were not applauded; therefore you are angry?”

“I laugh at it!” said she, looking fiercely at the king.  “Do you not know, sir, that this applause, these bravos, are to the artiste as the sound of a trumpet to the gallant war-horse, they invigorate and inspire, and swell the heart with strength and courage?  When the artiste stands upon the stage, the saloon before him is his heaven, and there his judges sit, to bestow eternal happiness or eternal condemnation; to crown him with immortal fame, or cover him with shame and confusion.  Now, sir, that I have explained to you that the stage saloon is our heaven, and the spectators are our judges, you will understand that these bravos are to us as the music of the spheres.”