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Art shall engage her thoughts in the music-room, and to Gluck and "Alcestes" the hour belongs! The queen struck the keys more firmly, and began to play the noble "Love's Complaint," of Gluck's opera. Unconsciously her lips opened, and with loud voice and intense passionate expression, she sang the words, "Oh, crudel, non posso in vere, tu lo sui, senza dite!"
"It's a white Mass," said Henri; "but I have the most excellent idea in the world. This girl receives letters from London. The postman must be bought or made drunk, a letter opened, read of course, and a love-letter slipped in before it is sealed up again. The old tyrant, crudel tirano, is certain to know the person who writes the letters from London, and has ceased to be suspicious of them."
She performed scenes from ballets or operas, pushing back the train of her dress with a tragic sweep of her foot, and accentuating strongly the commonplace exclamations of Italian lyricism: "Oh, Ciel! Crudel! Perfido! Oh, dio! Perdona!" Or else, kneeling on an arm-chair, she imitated the voice and manner of a preacher she had heard in Rome, and who did not seem to have sufficiently edified her.
The third act opens with a duet ("Crudel, perche finora") for the Count and Countess, followed by a very dramatic scena for the Count, beginning with the recitative, "Hai gi
But here, in this Opera Nova so furthered, are sixty-three little snatches of Luigi Pulci's, eight lines to the stave, about the idlest of make-believe love affairs, full of such Petrarchisms as "Gl' occhi tuoi belli son li crudel dardi," or "Tu m' ai trafitto il cor! donde io moro, Se tu, iddea, non mi dai aiutoro."
But Gluck played on, his hands weaving new strains of harmony such as earth had never heard before. His head thrown back, his eyes upturned toward heaven, his face beaming with inspiration, he listened to his music, while from Joseph's anguish was born the wonderful song in Alceste, "No crudel, no posso vivere, to to sai, senza de te."
"It's a white Mass," said Henri; "but I have the most excellent idea in the world. This girl receives letters from London. The postman must be bought or made drunk, a letter opened, read of course, and a love-letter slipped in before it is sealed up again. The old tyrant, crudel tirano, is certain to know the person who writes the letters from London, and has ceased to be suspicious of them."
He felt a curious chill there when he got up in the morning, a dead weight, a mass to lift with every choked beat. Perhaps the Jew would end what Ippolita had begun. If so, well. But, ah, Ippolita, Ippolita bella, Ippolita crudel! Ah, ohimè! Habit set him to work.
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