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The sergeant, an ordinary man, is not on a level with the Committee, or with Barere; and yet Barere did his best in a bill of indictment of twenty-seven pages, full of grand flourishes, every possible ritornello, glaring falsehood and silly inflation, explaining how "the Britannic leopard" paid assassins to murder the representatives; how the London cabinet had armed little Cecile Renault, "the new Corday," against Robespierre; how the Englishman, naturally barbarous, "is unable to deny his origins; how he descends from the Carthaginians and Phenicians, and formerly dealt in the skins of wild beasts and slaves; how his trading occupation is not changed; how Cesar, formerly, on landing in the country, found nothing but a ferocious tribe battling with wolves in the forest and threatening to burn every vessel which would try to land there; and how he still remains like that."
At the last round it is the young man who pretends to run away from his partner; she tries to seize his arm, after which they dance together until the ritornello puts an end to their pleasure.
And the mayor began to laugh with that expressionless laugh by which some persons end all their sentences; which may, perhaps, be called the ritornello of their conversation. After which he placed himself in what we must describe as his third position, standing full-front, his chest expanded, and his hands behind his back.
After playing the first measures of the romance from Saul, she resumed the motive with more precision, and when she had finished the ritornello she began to sing, in a soft, veiled voice, "Assisa al pie d'un salice " Gerfaut had heard her sing this several times, in society, but never with this depth of expression. She sang before strangers with her lips; now it all came from her heart.
It is worth looking at the plan of this Ride which is, be it remembered, only the prelude to the gigantic drama which is to follow. After the ritornello the main theme is announced, with a long break between the first and second strains; and again a break before it is continued.
Between the verses and at the close, a curious little ritornello is played. The wanderings of the pifferari are by no means confined to the Roman States.
"Whether derived," says the author of the "Fiore di Venezia," alluding to the speech of these peculiar people, "from those who first settled these shores, or resulting from other physical and moral causes, it is certain that the tone of the voice is here more varied and powerful: the mouth is thrown wide open in speaking; a passion, a lament mingles with laughter itself, and there is a continual ritornello of words previously spoken.
A couple of violins and a bass-fiddle were being tuned behind the curtains of the stage; the old gentleman's heart beat with expectation; and when all at once the orchestra struck up the ritornello of his work, he felt an electric thrill tingling in every nerve.
Then, through a ventilator, he permitted these fragrant waves to escape, only preserving the field which he renewed, compelling it to return in his strophes like a ritornello. The women had gradually disappeared. Now the plain had grown solitary. Suddenly, on the enchanted horizon, factories appeared whose tall chimneys flared like bowls of punch.
Those, also, I said to myself ill-humouredly, were probably stage jewels.... I cannot account for the sudden train of associations this word evoked: sweeping, magnificent gestures, star-like eyes, and a goddess' brows shining through innumerable years; a bar or two of melodious ritornello; an ineffable sense of poetry and grandeur, and but I am not sure a note or two of a distant, distant voice.
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