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"Was it done by order of the cardinal?" "No! The lord cardinal had lent this bravo to the celebrated improvisatrice Corilla the order came from her." "It is well!" said the count. "Do you know all the bravi in Rome?" "All, your excellency. They are all my good friends." "Well, now listen to what I have to say to you. You must hold the life of the Princess Tartaroff as sacred as your own!
"I will avenge this affront or die!" thought she, as, grasping Albani's hand with convulsive violence, she whispered to him: "Free me from this woman, and I will realize all your wishes." Francesco Albani smiled. "Then you are mine, Corilla, and no power on earth shall take you from me. That child is dead.
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.
At this moment there was a slight knock at the door, which was opened, and a man who appeared upon the threshold glanced into the room with a grinning laugh. Corilla gave him a sign, and at the same time pointed at Carlo, who, having his back toward her, seemed to have no suspicion of what was occurring behind him.
Others, overhearing this, mingled in the conversation, and added their requests to those of the cardinal; and, the feeling becoming general, the requests for an improvisation became universal and pressing; people, momentarily forgetting the great and celebrated improvisatrice Corilla, with a feverish curiosity turned to the new and unknown star.
Let not the infidels triumph however, or rank among them the truly-illustrious Corilla! 'Twas but the rage, I hope, of keeping at any rate the fame she has gained, when the sweet voice is gone, which once enchanted all who heard it like the daughters of Pierius in Ovid.
So also is the charming way in which an incident in the boyhood of young Joseph Haydn is treated by her fancy, in the episode of Consuelo's flight from the castle, when he becomes her fellow-traveller, and their adventures across country are told with such zest and entrain, in pages where life-sketches of character, such as the good-natured, self-indulgent canon, the violent, abandoned Corilla, make us forget the wildest improbabilities of the fiction itself.
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.
"I will remain," said he, "for I have promised her that she shall hear you!" "She has therefore come?" cried Corilla, with an outburst of joy. "She is now here," he laconically said. Corilla no longer listened to him, she walked back and forth with a triumphant mien, a cruel, malicious smile playing upon her lips.
"Natalie must first be completely separated from this society, and then I will seek this man and render him incapable of mischief!" thought he. By main strength he made himself a path through the crowd surrounding Corilla, and now stood near Cardinal Bernis, at whose side still remained Natalie and Count Paulo. "You have struck the lyre like an Apollo," exclaimed the cardinal to the singer.
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