is about to leave the room, Marcellina meets Susanna, and the two make a forced effort to conceal their mutual hatred and jealousy in an amusing duettino ("Via resti servita, madama brillante!"), full of satirical compliments and curtsies.  Marcellina is bowed out of the room with extravagant politeness, and Susanna turns her attention to her mistress’s wardrobe, only to be interrupted by the entrance of Cherubino, the Count’s page.  Though a mere stripling, Cherubino is already a budding voluptuary, animated with a wish, something like that of Byron’s hero, that all woman-kind had but a single mouth and he the privilege of kissing it.  He adores the Countess; but not her alone.  Susanna has a ribbon in her hand with which, she tells him, she binds up her mistress’s tresses at night.  Happy Susanna!  Happy ribbon!  Cherubino seizes it, refuses to give it up, and offers in exchange his latest ballad.  “What shall I do with the song?” asks Susanna.  “Sing it to the Countess!  Sing it yourself!  Sing it to Barbarina, to Marcellina, to all the ladies in the palace!” He tells Susanna (Air:  “Non so piu cosa son”) of the torments which he endures.  The lad’s mind is, indeed, in a parlous state; he feels his body alternately burning and freezing; the mere sight of a maiden sends the blood to his cheeks, and he needs must sigh whenever he hears her voice; sleeping and waking, by lakeside, in the shadow of the woods, on the mountain, by stream and fountain, his thoughts are only of love and its sweet pains.  It is quite impossible to describe the eloquence with which Mozart’s music expresses the feverish unrest, the turmoil, and the longing which fill the lad’s soul.  Otto Jahn has attempted it, and I shall quote his effort:—­

The vibration of sentiment, never amounting to actual passion, the mingled anguish and delight of the longing which can never be satisfied, are expressed with a power of beauty raising them out of the domain of mere sensuality.  Very remarkable is the simplicity of the means by which this extraordinary effect is attained.  A violin accompaniment passage, not unusual in itself, keeps up the restless movement; the harmonies make no striking progressions; strong emphasis and accents are sparingly used, and yet the soft flow of the music is made suggestive of the consuming glow of passion.  The instrumentation is here of a very peculiar effect and quite a novel coloring; the stringed instruments are muted, and clarinets occur for the first time, and very prominently, both alone and in combination with the horns and bassoons.

Cherubino’s philandering with Susanna is interrupted by the Count, who comes with protestations of love, which the page hears from a hiding-place behind a large arm-chair, where Susanna, in her embarrassment, had hastily concealed him on the Count’s entrance.  The Count’s philandering, in turn, is interrupted by Basilio, whose voice is heard long enough before his entrance to permit the Count also to seek a hiding-place.