‘Do you know that handsome young Count Ammiani?’ Countess Lena said to Wilfrid.  ’Perhaps you do not think him handsome?  He was for a short time a play-fellow of mine.  He is more passionate than I am, and that does not say a little; I warn you!  Look how excited he is.  No wonder.  He is—­everybody knows it—­he is la Vittoria’s lover.’

Countess Lena uttered that sentence in Italian.  The soft tongue sent it like a coiling serpent through Wilfrid’s veins.  In English or in German it would not have possessed the deadly meaning.

She may have done it purposely, for she and her sister Countess Anna studied his face.  The lifting of the curtain drew all eyes to the stage.

Rocco Ricci’s baton struck for the opening of one of his spirited choruses; a chorus of villagers, who sing to the burden that Happiness, the aim of all humanity, has promised to visit the earth this day, that she may witness the union of the noble lovers, Camillo and Camilla.  Then a shepherd sings a verse, with his hand stretched out to the impending castle.  There lives Count Orso:  will he permit their festivities to pass undisturbed?  The puling voice is crushed by the chorus, which protests that the heavens are above Count Orso.  But another villager tells of Orso’s power, and hints at his misdeeds.  The chorus rises in reply, warning all that Count Orso has ears wherever three are congregated; the villagers break apart and eye one another distrustfully, reuniting to the song of Happiness before they disperse.  Camillo enters solus.  Montini, as Camillo, enjoyed a warm reception; but as he advanced to deliver his canzone, it was seen that he and Rocco interchanged glances of desperate resignation.  Camillo has had love passages with Michiella, Count Orso’s daughter, and does not hesitate to declare that he dreads her.  The orphan Camilla, who has been reared in yonder castle with her, as her sister, is in danger during all these last minutes which still retain her from his arms.

’If I should never see her—­I who, like a poor ghost upon the shores of the dead river, have been flattered with the thought that she would fall upon my breast like a ray of the light of Elysium—­if I should never see her more!’ The famous tenore threw his whole force into that outcry of projected despair, and the house was moved by it:  there were many in the house who shared his apprehension of a foul mischance.

Thenceforward the opera and the Italian audience were as one.  All that was uttered had a meaning, and was sympathetically translated.  Camilla they perceived to be a grave burlesque with a core to it.  The quick-witted Italians caught up the interpretation in a flash.  ‘Count Orso’ Austria; ‘Michiella’ is Austria’s spirit of intrigue; ‘Camillo’ is indolent Italy, amorous Italy, Italy aimless; ‘Camilla’ is young Italy!

Their eagerness for sight of Vittoria was now red-hot, and when Camillo exclaimed ‘She comes!’ many rose from their seats.