“Yes,” said Zara.  “I suppose you saw the book at Raffaello’s studio.  Good Raffaello Cellini! his is another absolutely ungrudging and unselfish spirit.  But this musician that I speak of was like a child in humility and reverence.  Casimir told me he had never sounded so perfect a nature.  At one time he, too, was a little anxious for recognition and praise, and Casimir saw that he was likely to wreck himself on that fatal rock of poor ambition.  So he took him in hand, and taught him the meaning of his work, and why it was especially given him to do; and that man’s life became ‘one grand sweet song.’  But there are tears in your eyes, dear!  What have I said to grieve you?”

And she caressed me tenderly.  The tears were indeed thick in my eyes, and a minute or two elapsed before I could master them.  At last I raised my head and endeavoured to smile.

“They are not sad tears, Zara,” I said; “I think they come from a strong desire I have to be what you are, what your brother is, what that dead musician must have been.  Why, I have longed, and do long for fame, for wealth, for the world’s applause, for all the things which you seem to think so petty and mean.  How can I help it?  Is not fame power?  Is not money a double power, strong to assist one’s self and those one loves?  Is not the world’s favour a necessary means to gain these things?”

Zara’s eyes gleamed with a soft and pitying gentleness.

“Do you understand what you mean by power?” she asked.  “World’s fame?  World’s wealth?  Will these things make you enjoy life?  You will perhaps say yes.  I tell you no.  Laurels of earth’s growing fade; gold of earth’s getting is good for a time, but it palls quickly.  Suppose a man rich enough to purchase all the treasures of the world—­what then?  He must die and leave them.  Suppose a poet or musician so famous that all nations know and love him:  he too must die, and go where nations exist no longer.  And you actually would grasp ashes and drink wormwood, little friend?  Music, the heaven-born spirit of pure sound, does not teach you so!”

I was silent.  The gleam of the strange jewel Zara always wore flashed in my eyes like lightning, and anon changed to the similitude of a crimson star.  I watched it, dreamily fascinated by its unearthly glitter.

“Still,” I said, “you yourself admit that such fame as that of Shakespeare or Wagner becomes a universal monument to their memories.  That is something, surely?”

“Not to them,” replied Zara; “they have partly forgotten that they ever were imprisoned in such a narrow gaol as this world.  Perhaps they do not care to remember it, though memory is part of immortality.”

“Ah!” I sighed restlessly; “your thoughts go beyond me, Zara.  I cannot follow your theories.”

Zara smiled.

“We will not talk about them any more,” she said; “you must tell Casimir—­he will teach you far better than I can.”