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Updated: May 29, 2025
There was only one thing which exclusively occupied Corilla, following and tormenting her day and night, and that was her poetic fame. She desired that her name should stand high in the world, glorified by all Europe, and for this purpose she desired above all things to be crowned as a poetess in the capitol of the holy city; for this fame she would willingly have given many years of her life.
She was wholly occupied by the thought of seeing Corilla, the great improvisatrice, of whom Carlo, Natalie's music-teacher, had told her so much, and whose fame was sounded by children and adults in all the streets of Rome. "We go to this festival, do we not, Paulo?" repeated she, as the count still continued silent. Recovering from his abstraction, he said: "Yes, we will go!
This Corilla may bribe you poor earthly fools with her smiles and amorous verses, but she will not be able to deceive the Muses!" "You refuse me, then, the crowning of the renowned improvisatrice Corilla?" asked the cardinal, with painfully suppressed rage. "I refuse it!" "And why, then, did you send for me?" exclaimed the cardinal with vehemence. "Was it merely to mock me?"
"He will be ravished?" said she, with a smile, advancing to meet him with the proud and imposing dignity of a queen. "You are beautiful as a goddess!" exclaimed the cardinal, "and whoever sees you thus has seen the protecting divinity of ancient Rome, the sublime Juno, queen of heaven!" "Were I Juno, would you consent to be my Vulcan?" roguishly asked Corilla.
Pope Clement will soon need a successor; he must be very ill, the poor pope!" So speaking, he took leave of the future pope with a friendly nod, and departed with as much haste as he had come. "And now to these pious Jesuit fathers!" said he, stepping out upon the grass. "It was very prudent in me that I went on foot to Corilla to-day.
The preliminaries are the main thing, and if we only had some one to prepare her for my appearance, all would then go well. And such a one we will find, thanks to our rubles! But enough of politics for the present, Stephano. Call my valet. It is time for my toilet, and that is a very important affair." Corilla was alone.
Corilla smiled with delight, and let that smile remain upon her lips, as she very well knew it was becoming to her, and that she had conquered many hearts with it; but secretly her heart throbbed with fear, and timidly she asked herself, "What can that Russian count want of me?"
Corilla was no poetess by the grace of God, and only by the grace of man had she been crowned as queen of poesy! Mortified, crushed, and enraged, she fled from Rome to Florence. She knew how to flatter the great and win princes. She was a princess-poetess, and the people rejected her! But the laurel was hers.
I might be remarked, suspected, and betrayed. Corilla, dear, beautiful woman, it costs me much pains and many efforts to conquer you; will your possession repay me?" The cardinal patiently waited in the shadow of a taxus-bush until the street become for a moment empty and solitary. Then he hastened to a side-door of the building, and, sure of being unobserved, entered.
And while Corilla, as if absorbed in spiritual contemplation, continued to stand immovable there, began the low notes of a harp, which, gradually becoming fuller and stronger, at length resounded in powerfully rushing and exultant tones.
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