’My child! were I a Goddess, my wounds would heal.  Were I a Saint, I should be in Paradise.  I am no Goddess, and no Saint:  yet I cannot die.  My wounds flow and my tears.  My tears flow because of no fleshly anguish:  I pardon my enemies.  My blood flows from my body, my tears from my soul.  They flow to wash out my shame.  I have to expiate my soul’s shame by my body’s shame.  Oh! how shall I tell you what it is to walk among my children unknown of them, though each day I bear the sun abroad like my beating heart; each night the moon, like a heart with no blood in it.  Sun and moon they see, but not me!  They know not their mother.  I cry to God.  The answer of our God is this:—­“Give to thy children one by one to drink of thy mingled tears and blood:—­then, if there is virtue in them, they shall revive, thou shaft revive.  If virtue is not in them, they and thou shall continue prostrate, and the ox shall walk over you.”  From heaven’s high altar, O Camilla, my child, this silver sacramental cup was reached to me.  Gather my tears in it, fill it with my blood, and drink.’

The song had been massive in monotones, almost Gregorian in its severity up to this point.

’I took the cup.  I looked my mother in the face.  I filled the cup from the flowing of her tears, the flowing of her blood; and I drank!’

Vittoria sent this last phrase ringing out forcefully.  From the inveterate contralto of the interview, she rose to pure soprano in describing her own action.  ‘And I drank,’ was given on a descent of the voice:  the last note was in the minor key—­it held the ear as if more must follow:  like a wail after a triumph of resolve.  It was a masterpiece of audacious dramatic musical genius addressed with sagacious cunning and courage to the sympathizing audience present.  The supposed incompleteness kept them listening; the intentness sent that last falling (as it were, broken) note travelling awakeningly through their minds.  It is the effect of the minor key to stir the hearts of men with this particular suggestiveness.  The house rose, Italians—­and Germans together.  Genius, music, and enthusiasm break the line of nationalities.  A rain of nosegays fell about Vittoria; evvivas, bravas, shouts—­all the outcries of delirious men surrounded her.  Men and women, even among the hardened chorus, shook together and sobbed.  ‘Agostino!’ and ‘Rocco!’ were called; ‘Vittoria!’ ‘Vittoria!’ above all, with increasing thunder, like a storm rushing down a valley, striking in broad volume from rock to rock, humming remote, and bursting up again in the face of the vale.  Her name was sung over and over—­’Vittoria!  Vittoria!’ as if the mouths were enamoured of it.

‘Evviva la Vittoria a d’ Italia!’ was sung out from the body of the house.

An echo replied—­

‘"Italia a il premio della Vittoria!"’ a well-known saying gloriously adapted, gloriously rescued from disgrace.