none could accuse of coldness, though they showed no emotion; her simple noble manner that seemed to lift her up among the forces threatening her; these expressions of a superior soul moved Anna under the influence of the incomparable voice to pass over envious contrasts, and feel the voice and the nature were one in that bosom.  Could it be the same as the accursed woman who had stood before her at Meran?  She could hardly frame the question, but she had the thought sufficiently firmly to save her dignity; she was affected by very strong emotion when Vittoria’s singing ended, and nothing but the revival of the recollection of her old contempt preserved her from an impetuous desire to take the singer by the hand and have all clear between them; for they were now of equal rank to tolerating eyes.  “But she has no religious warmth!” Anna reflected with a glow of satisfaction.  The concert was broken up by Laura Piaveni.  She said out loud that the presence of Major Weisspriess was intolerable to the Countess Alessandra.  It happened that Weisspriess entered the room while Laura sat studying the effect produced by her countrywoman’s voice on the thick eyelids of Austrian Anna; and Laura, seeing their enemy ready to weep in acknowledgment of their power, scorned the power which could never win freedom, and broke up the sitting, citing the offence of the presence of Weisspriess for a pretext.  The incident threw Anna back upon her old vindictiveness.  It caused an unpleasant commotion in the duchess’s saloon.  Count Serabiglione was present, and ran round to Weisspriess, apologizing for his daughter’s behaviour.  “Do you think I can’t deal with your women as well as your men, you ass?” said Weisspriess, enraged by the scandal of the scene.  He was overheard by Count Karl Lenkenstein, who took him to task sharply for his rough speech; but Anna supported her lover, and they joined hands publicly.  Anna went home prostrated with despair.  “What conscience is in me that I should wish one of my Kaiser’s officers killed?” she cried enigmatically to Lena.  “But I must have freedom.  Oh! to be free.  I am chained to my enemy, and God blesses that woman.  He makes her weep, but he blesses her, for her body is free, and mine,—­the thought of mine sets flames creeping up my limbs as if I were tied to the stake.  Losing a husband you love—­what is that to taking a husband you hate?” Still Lena could get no plain confession from her, for Anna clung to self-justification, and felt it abandoning her, and her soul fluttering in a black gulf when she opened her month to disburden herself.

There came tidings of the bombardment of Brescia one of the historic deeds of infamy.  Many officers of the Imperial army perceived the shame which it cast upon their colours, even in those intemperate hours, and Karl Lenkenstein assumed the liberty of private friendship to go complaining to the old Marshal, who was too true a soldier to condemn a soldier in action, however strong his disapproval of proceedings.