Much of the time was lost by Agostino’s dispute with Salvolo.  They haggled and wrangled laughingly over this and that printed aria, but it was a deplorable deception of the unhappy man; and with Vittoria’s stronger resolve to sing the incendiary song, the more necessary it was for her to have her soul clear of deceit.  She said, ’Signor Salvolo, you have been very kind to me, and I would do nothing to hurt your interests.  I suppose you must suffer for being an Italian, like the rest of us.  The song I mean to sing is not written or printed.  What is in the book cannot harm you, for the censorship has passed it; and surely I alone am responsible for singing what is not in the book—­I and the maestro.  He supports me.  We have both taken precautions’ (she smiled) ’to secure our property.  If you are despoiled, we will share with you.  And believe, oh! in God’s name, believe that you will not suffer to no purpose!’

Salvolo started from her in a horror of amazement.  He declared that he had been miserably deceived and entrapped.  He threatened to send the company to their homes forthwith.  ‘Dare to!’ said Agostino; and to judge by the temper of the house, it was only too certain, that if he did so, La Scala would be a wrecked tenement in the eye of morning.  But Agostino backed his entreaty to her to abjure that song; Rocco gave way, and half shyly requested her to think of prudence.  She remembered Laura, and Carlo, and her poor little frightened foreign mother.  Her intense ideal conception of her duty sank and danced within her brain as the pilot-star dances on the bows of a tossing vessel.  All were against her, as the tempest is against the ship.  Even light above (by which I would image that which she could appeal to pleading in behalf of the wisdom of her obstinate will) was dyed black in the sweeping obscuration; she failed to recollect a sentence that was to be said to vindicate her settled course.  Her sole idea was her holding her country by an unseen thread, and of the everlasting welfare of Italy being jeopardized if she relaxed her hold.  Simple obstinacy of will sustained her.

You mariners batten down the hatchways when the heavens are dark and seas are angry.  Vittoria, with the same faith in her instinct, shut the avenues to her senses—­would see nothing, hear nothing.  The impresario’s figure of despair touched her later.  Giacinta drove him forth in the act of smiting his forehead with both hands.  She did the same for Agostino and Rocco, who were not demonstrative.

They knew that by this time the agents of the Government were in all probability ransacking their rooms, and confiscating their goods.

‘Is your piano hired?’ quoth the former.

‘No,’ said the latter, ‘are your slippers?’

They went their separate ways, laughing.

CHAPTER XXI

THE THIRD ACT