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

The libretto of the Third Act was steeped in the sentiment of Young Italy.  I wish that I could pipe to your mind’s hearing any notion of the fine music of Rocco Ricci, and touch you to feel the revelations which were in this new voice.  Rocco and Vittoria gave the verses a life that cannot belong to them now; yet, as they contain much of the vital spirit of the revolt, they may assist you to some idea of the faith animating its heads, and may serve to justify this history.

Rocco’s music in the opera of Camilla had been sprung from a fresh Italian well; neither the elegiac-melodious, nor the sensuous-lyrical, nor the joyous buffo; it was severe as an old masterpiece, with veins of buoyant liveliness threading it, and with sufficient distinctness of melody to enrapture those who like to suck the sugarplums of sound.  He would indeed have favoured the public with more sweet things, but Vittoria, for whom the opera was composed, and who had been at his elbow, was young, and stern in her devotion to an ideal of classical music that should elevate and never stoop to seduce or to flatter thoughtless hearers.  Her taste had directed as her voice had inspired the opera.  Her voice belonged to the order of the simply great voices, and was a royal voice among them.  Pure without attenuation, passionate without contortion, when once heard it exacted absolute confidence.  On this night her theme and her impersonation were adventitious introductions, but there were passages