The Daughter of an Empress

Corilla was alone. Uneasy, full of stormy thoughts, she impetuously

walked back and forth, occasionally uttering single passionate

exclamations, then again thoughtfully staring at vacancy before her. She

was a full-blooded, warm Italian woman, that will neither love nor hate

with the whole soul, and nourishes both feelings in her bosom with equal

strength and with equal warmth. But, in her, hatred exhaled as quickly

as love; it was to her only the champagne-foam of life, which she sipped

for the purpose of a slight intoxication--as in her intoxication only

did she feel herself a poetess, and in a condition for improvisation.

"I must at any rate be in love," said she, "else I should lose my poetic

fame. With cool blood and a tranquil mind there is no improvising and

poetizing. With me all must be stirring and flaming, every nerve of my

being must glow and tremble, the blood must flash like fire through my

veins, and the most glowing wishes and ardent longings, be it love or

be it hate, must be stirring within me in order to poetize successfully.

And this cannot be comprehended by delicate and discreet people; this

low Roman populace even venture to call me a coquette, only because I

constantly need a new glow, and because I constantly seek new emotions

and new inspirations for my muse."

Love, then, for the improvisatrice Corilla, was nothing more than a

strong wine with which she refreshed and strengthened her fatigued

poetic powers for renewed exertions; it was in a manner the tow which

she threw upon the expiring fire of her fantasy, to make it flash up in

clear and bright flames.

It was only in this way that she loved Carlo, and wept for him, except

that in this case her love had been of a longer duration, because it

was he who gave up and left her! That was what made her hatred so

glowing, that was what made her seek the life of the woman for whom

Carlo had deserted her.

"This is a new situation," said she, "which I am called to live through

and to feel. But a poetess must have experienced all feelings, or

she could not describe them. For my part, I do not believe in the

revelations of genius--I believe only in experiences. One can describe

only what one has felt and experienced. Whoever may attempt to describe

the flavor of an orange, must first have tasted it!"

That this attempt to murder Natalie had failed, was to her a matter of

little moment. She had experienced the emotion of it, and just the

same would it have been a matter of indifference to her had the dagger

pierced Natalie's breast--she was sufficiently a child of the South to

consider a murder as only a venial sin, for which the priest could grant

absolution.