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Her sublime beauty was beyond all possible rivalry, though there were some charming women of Geneva, and other Italians, among them the dazzling and illustrious Princess Varese, and the famous singer Tinti, who was at that moment singing.
"Are you idiotic?" cried Vendramin. "No; you are mad; for madness, the crisis we despise, is the memory of an antecedent condition acting on our present state of being. The genius of my dreams has taught me that, and much else! You want to make one of the Duchess and la Tinti; nay, dear Emilio, take them separately; it will be far wiser. Raphael alone ever united form and idea.
From the balcony la Tinti in return sang Almavida's Buona sera from Il Barbiere, while the Duke's steward distributed payment from his master to the poor artists and bid them to dinner the next day, such civilities as are expected of grand signors who protect singers, and of fine ladies who protect tenors and basses. In these cases there is nothing for it but to marry all the corps de theatre.
Cataneo did things handsomely; he was the manager's banker, and this season was costing him two thousand crowns. He had had all the palace furnished, had imported a French cook, and wines of all lands. So the supper was a regal entertainment. The Prince, seated next la Tinti, was keenly alive, all through the meal, to what poets in every language call the darts of love.
"I will repay nothing," said Emilio in an undertone. "There is nothing due! A million is cheap for Clara Tinti when a man is so ugly. Now, go," said she to the Duke. "You dismissed me; now I dismiss you. We are quits."
Confident of retaining him, her joy was reflected in her features, her beauty was so dazzling that the men, as they lifted their glasses, could not resist bowing to her with instinctive admiration. "The Duchess is not to compare with la Tinti," said the Frenchman, forgetting his theory under the fire of the Sicilian's eyes.
But this evening, even if la Tinti had been more brilliant than ever, I could throw myself so completely into the situation, that the passage, lively as it is, is to me full of sadness." The physician looked attentively from the Prince to the Duchess, but could not guess the reason that held them apart, and that made this duet seem to them so heartrending.
Without waiting to finish the letter, which he crumpled up and put in his pocket, Emilio ran to communicate this great news to the Duchess, forgetting his heraldic honors. The Duchess knew nothing of the strange story which made la Tinti an object of curiosity in Italy, and Emilio briefly repeated it.
In short, can you, an angel of refinement, of pure and spotless beauty, condescend to imagine what the love must be of a Tinti in her room, and so effectually as to deceive the ardor of Emilio, who is indeed too drunk to be very clear-sighted?"
If you have formed a clear idea of this landscape, you will see in those sleeping waters the image of Emilio's love for the Duchess, and in the cascades leaping like a flock of sheep, an idea of his passion shared with la Tinti. In the midst of his torrent of love a rock stood up against which the torrent broke. The Prince, like Sisyphus, was constantly under the stone.
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