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.