et in his seraglio, surrounded by women, but
not happy. Quartette of Houris (A major). What pompous harmony, what
trills as of ecstatic nightingales! Modulation (into F sharp minor). The
theme is stated (on the dominant E and repeated in F major). Here every
delight is grouped and expressed to give effect to the contrast of the
gloomy _finale_ of the first act. After the dancing, Mahomet rises and
sings a grand _bravura_ air (in F minor), repelling the perfect and
devoted love of his first wife, but confessing himself conquered by
polygamy. Never has a musician had so fine a subject! The orchestra
and the chorus of female voices express the joys of the Houris, while
Mahomet reverts to the melancholy strain of the opening. Where is
Beethoven," cried Gambara, "to appreciate this prodigious reaction of my
opera on itself? How completely it all rests on the bass.

"It is thus that Beethoven composed his E minor symphony. But his heroic
work is purely instrumental, whereas here, my heroic phrase is worked
out on a sextette of the finest human voices, and a chorus of the
faithful on guard at the door of the sacred dwelling. I have every
resource of melody and harmony at my command, an orchestra and voices.
Listen to the utterance of all these phases of human life, rich and
poor;--battle, triumph, and exhaustion!

"Ali arrives, the Koran prevails in every province (duet in D minor).
Mahomet places himself in the hands of his two fathers-in-law; he will
abdicate his rule and die in retirement to consolidate his work. A
magnificent sextette (B flat major). He takes leave of all (solo in F
natural). His two fathers-in-law, constituted his vicars or Khalifs,
appeal to the people. A great triumphal march, and a prayer by all the
Arabs kneeling before the sacred house, the Kasbah, from which a pigeon
is seen to fly away (the same key). This prayer, sung by sixty voices
and led by the women (in B flat), crowns the stupendous work expressive
of the life of nations and of man. Here you have every emotion, human
and divine."

Andrea gazed at Gambara in blank amazement. Though at first he had been
struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man expressing the
feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in Marianna,--the
husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with the composer's.
There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea in the hideous
cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the first princip