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.