Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
Stradella and Cucurullo came up from the dungeon in a miserable state, unwashed, unshaven, their clothes stained with the slimy ooze of their prison; their hair was damp and matted, their eyes blinked painfully in the light, and their grimy cheeks were of a ghastly colour.
Stradella sprang in with the driving wet and only succeeded in shutting the window after several efforts, during which the lamp was almost blown out. He stood before her then bare-headed, and the water ran down upon the marble floor from his drenched clothes. He had neither hat nor cloak, and his dark hair was matted with the rain; but his face was radiant.
There are historians, sour and cynical, who have tried to contradict the truth of the life story of Stradella as Bourdelot tells it in his "Histoire de la Musique et de ses Effets," but they cannot offer us any satisfactory substitute in its place, and without troubling to give their merely destructive complaints, and without attempting to improve upon the pompously fascinating English of old Sir John Hawkins, I will quote the story for your delectation.
It was not strange that her fear of her own situation should be stronger just then than her anxiety for Stradella, believing, as she did, that Don Alberto had made his plans for that very night, and thinking, as was natural, that his great power in Rome might even have sufficed to have her followed from the Lateran, in which case he could well hinder her husband and Gambardella from joining her, and she would be at his mercy just as if she had gone home to sleep in the palace.
'How can I? she asked, very low. Then they heard Pina's voice behind them, not loud, but sharp and imperative. 'The Senator is coming back! she called to them, as she dropped the curtain after entering and hastened to her seat. Stradella crossed to the other side of the window in an instant, raising the lute he still carried in one hand.
"Yes," she said when she had finished, "but you are very much mistaken, the air is mine, and I have made you believe it was Stradella's." "It is yours?" "Yes, and I told you it was by Stradella in order to see what you would say of it. I never play my own music when I happen to compose any; but I wanted to try it with you, and you see it has succeeded since you were deceived."
'The Chief is persuaded of your worship's good intentions, Trombin answered blandly. 'I can promise your worship, in his name, that the matter shall not be mentioned again. Will you be so good as to order Signor Stradella to be set at liberty? I will conduct him to the inn myself and see to his requirements.
He has had the ingenious audacity to make the opera ‘Stradella’ more enjoyable by the interpolation of a funeral march of his own make. The ever-submissive domestic birds which he carries under his arms have rewarded him for his efforts in this connection by the cackling of their abundant and affectionate gratitude.”
It is not my poor beauty that is rarer than pearls and rubies, love, but your genius and your voice. I know what you mean now! I like to be envied by other women because you are mine, with all you are, you, and your fame, and everything! 'Do you see? Stradella laughed softly. 'You should not be angry with people who stare at you, any more than I am with people who listen when I sing!
Ortensia and Stradella knew none of these things. He had grown famous almost without an effort when scarcely more than a boy, and fame did not desert him; and now that he had overcome obstacles and passed through danger to be happy, he believed with child-like faith that such happiness, once got, must be safe from outward harm, since it dwelt in the heart, where no one could see it, to envy it as men envied worldly glory.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking