ime, Andrea complimented Giardini enthusiastically, but he
leaned over to whisper in his ear, and slipping a gold piece into his
hand under the table, begged him to go out and buy a few bottles of
champagne, leaving him free to take all the credit of the treat.

When the Italian returned, every plate was cleared, and the room rang
with praises of the master-cook. The champagne soon mounted these
southern brains, and the conversation, till now subdued in the
stranger's presence, overleaped the limits of suspicious reserve to
wander far over the wide fields of political and artistic opinions.

Andrea, to whom no form of intoxication was known but those of love and
poetry, had soon gained the attention of the company and skilfully led
it to a discussion of matters musical.

"Will you tell me, monsieur," said he to the composer of dance-music,
"how it is that the Napoleon of these tunes can condescend to usurp the
place of Palestrina, Pergolesi, and Mozart,--poor creatures who must
pack and vanish at the advent of that tremendous Mass for the Dead?"

"Well, monsieur," replied the composer, "a musician always finds it
difficult to reply when the answer needs the cooperation of a hundred
skilled executants. Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, without an orchestra
would be of no great account."

"Of no great account!" said Marcosini. "Why, all the world knows that
the immortal author of _Don Giovanni_ and the _Requiem_ was named
Mozart; and I am so unhappy as not to know the name of the inexhaustible
writer of quadrilles which are so popular in our drawing-rooms----"

"Music exists independently of execution," said the retired conductor,
who, in spite of his deafness, had caught a few words of the
conversation. "As he looks through the C-minor symphony by Beethoven, a
musician is transported to the world of fancy on the golden wings of the
subject in G-natural repeated by the horns in E. He sees a whole realm,
by turns glorious in dazzling shafts of light, gloomy under clouds of
melancholy, and cheered by heavenly strains."

"The new school has left Beethoven far behind," said the ballad-writer,
scornfully.

"Beethoven is not yet understood," said the Count. "How can he be
excelled?"

Gambara drank a large glass of champagne, accompanying the draught by a
covert smile of approval.

"Beethoven," the Count went on, "extended the limits of instrumental
music, and no one followed in his track."

Gambara assented with a nod.