The Daughter of an Empress

Then, returning to the altar, they threw into the urn the small scraps

of paper on which the guests has proposed themes. The harp again

resounded, and with a solemn earnestness, her face and glance still

directed upward, Corilla drew one of the little strips of paper from the

urn. Accident, or perhaps her own dexterity, had favored her.

"Sappho's lament before throwing herself from the rocks"--that was the

theme proposed.

Corilla's face immediately took an expression of sadness; her eyes

flashed with an unnatural fire; her previously raised arm fell powerless

by her side; her head, like a broken rose, sank upon her breast; her

other hand convulsively grasped the urn, and in this position she in

fact resembled an abandoned mourner, weeping over the ashes of her lost

happiness. She was now the repudiated and forsaken one who, ready to

resign her life, was brooding upon thoughts of death. And while her face

took this expression, and she, staring upon the earth before her, seemed

to be meditating upon irremediable fate, thought Corilla: "This is a

charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn

for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his

promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp,

and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso

rhyme will here be the most appropriate!"

Again she directed her gaze, with a gloomy expression, toward the

heavens, and with a violently heaving bosom, with feverishly flitting

breath, she began the lament of Sappho. Now like rattling thunder,

now like the gentle breathings of the flute, rolled this sweet and

picturesque language of Italy from her lips--like music sounded those

full, artistic rhymes, of which but few of the hearers had the least

suspicion that they came from Tasso. To improvise in the Italian

language is an easy and a grateful task! What wonder, then, that Corilla

acquitted herself so charmingly? The audience paid no attention to the

thoughts expressed; they asked not after the quintessence; they were

satisfied with the agreeable sound, without inquiring into the sense of

her words; it was their melody which was admired. They listened not

for the thought, but only for the rhyme, and with ecstatic smiles and

admiring glances they nodded to each other when, thanks to the studies

which Corilla had made in Tasso, Marino, and Ariosto, she seemed of

herself to find rhymes for the most difficult words.

An immense storm of applause resounded when she ended; and as if

awakening from an intoxicating ecstasy, Corilla glanced around with an

expression of astonishment on her features; she looked around as if she

knew not whence she came, and in what strange surroundings she now found

herself.

After a short pause, which Carlo filled out with his harp, she again put

her hand into the urn and drew out a new theme; again the inspiration

seemed to pass over her, and the holy Whitsuntide of her muse to be

renewed. Constantly more and more stormily resounded the plaudits of her

hearers; it was like a continued thunder of enthusiasm, a real salvo

of joy. It animated Corilla to new improvisations; she again and

again recurred to the urn, drawing forth new themes, and seemed to be

absolutely inexhaustible.