id," Gambara went on; "but be careful. Your argument, while reflecting
on Italian sensuality, seems to me to lean towards German idealism,
which is no less fatal heresy. If men of imagination and good sense,
like you, desert one camp only to join the other; if they cannot keep to
the happy medium between two forms of extravagance, we shall always
be exposed to the satire of the sophists, who deny all progress, who
compare the genius of man to this tablecloth, which, being too short to
cover the whole of Signor Giardini's table, decks one end at the expense
of the other."

Giardini bounded in his seat as if he had been stung by a horse-fly, but
swift reflections restored him to his dignity as a host; he looked up to
heaven and again nudged the Count, who was beginning to think the cook
more crazy than Gambara.

This serious and pious way of speaking of art interested the Milanese
extremely. Seated between these two distracted brains, one so noble
and the other so common, and making game of each other to the great
entertainment of the crowd, there was a moment when the Count found
himself wavering between the sublime and its parody, the farcical
extremes of human life. Ignoring the chain of incredible events which
had brought them to this smoky den, he believed himself to be the
plaything of some strange hallucination, and thought of Gambara and
Giardini as two abstractions.

Meanwhile, after a last piece of buffoonery from the deaf conductor in
reply to Gambara, the company had broken up laughing loudly. Giardini
went off to make coffee, which he begged the select few to accept, and
his wife cleared the table. The Count, sitting near the stove between
Marianna and Gambara, was in the very position which the mad musician
thought most desirable, with sensuousness on one side and idealism on
the other. Gambara finding himself for the first time in the society
of a man who did not laugh at him to his face, soon diverged from
generalities to talk of himself, of his life, his work, and the musical
regeneration of which he believed himself to be the Messiah.

"Listen," said he, "you who so far have not insulted me. I will tell you
the story of my life; not to make a boast of my perseverance, which
is no virtue of mine, but to the greater glory of Him who has given me
strength. You seem kind and pious; if you do not believe in me at least
you will pity me. Pity is human; faith comes from God."

Andrea turned and drew back u