Countess Ammiani addressed Luciano:  ’This is a young man’s love for a woman.’

‘The woman is worth it,’ Luciano replied.

‘No woman is worth the sacrifice of a mother and of a relative.’

‘Dearest countess,’ said Luciano, ’look at the pit; it’s a cauldron.  We shall get him out presently, have no fear:  there will soon be hubbub enough to let Lucifer escape unseen.  If nothing is done to-night, he and I will be off to the Lago di Garda to-morrow morning, and fish and shoot, and talk with Catullus.’

The countess gazed on her son with sorrowful sternness.  His eyes had taken that bright glazed look which is an indication of frozen brain and turbulent heart—­madness that sane men enamoured can be struck by.  She knew there was no appeal to it.

A very dull continuous sound, like that of an angry swarm, or more like a rapid mufed thrumming of wires, was heard.  The audience had caught view of a brown-coated soldier at one of the wings.  The curious Croat had merely gratified a desire to have a glance at the semicircle of crowded heads; he withdrew his own, but not before he had awakened the wild beast in the throng.  Yet a little while and the roar of the beasts would have burst out.  It was thought that Vittoria had been seized or interdicted from appearing.  Conspirators—­the knights of the plains—­meet:  Rudolfos, Romualdos, Arnoldos, and others,—­so that you know Camilla is not idle.  She comes on in the great scene which closes the opera.

It is the banqueting hall of the castle.  The Pontifical divorce is spread upon the table.  Courtly friends, guards, and a choric bridal company, form a circle.

‘I have obtained it,’ says Count Orso:  ‘but at a cost.’

Leonardo, wavering eternally, lets us know that it is weighted with a proviso:  If Camilla shall not present herself within a certain term, this being the last day of it.  Camillo comes forward.  Too late, he has perceived his faults and weakness.  He has cast his beloved from his arms to clasp them on despair.  The choric bridal company gives intervening strophes.  Cavaliers enter.  ‘Look at them well,’ says Leonardo.  They are the knights of the plains.  ‘They have come to mock me,’ Camillo exclaims, and avoids them.

Leonardo, Michiella, and Camillo now sing a trio that is tricuspidato, or a three-pointed manner of declaring their divergent sentiments in harmony.  The fast-gathering cavaliers lend masculine character to the choric refrains at every interval.  Leonardo plucks Michiella entreatingly by the arm.  She spurns him.  He has served her; she needs him no more; but she will recommend him in other quarters, and bids him to seek them.  ’I will give thee a collar for thy neck, marked “Faithful.”  It is the utmost I can do for thy species.’  Leonardo thinks that he is insulted, but there is a vestige of doubt in him still.  ’She is so fair! she dissembles so magnificently ever!’ She has previously told him that she is acting a part, as Camilla did.  Irma had shed all her hair from a golden circlet about her temples, barbarian-wise.  Some Hunnish grandeur pertained to her appearance, and partly excused the infatuated wretch who shivered at her disdain and exulted over her beauty and artfulness.