when the disciple of Majendie, of Cuvier, of Dupuytren, and
of Brossais assured him that he believed he could cure the Prince of his
high-flown raptures, and dispel the heavenly poetry in which he shrouded
Massimilla as in a cloud.

"A happy form of misfortune!" said he. "The ancients, who were not such
fools as might be inferred from their crystal heaven and their ideas on
physics, symbolized in the fable of Ixion the power which nullifies the
body and makes the spirit lord of all."

Vendramin and the doctor presently met Genovese, and with him the
fantastic Capraja. The melomaniac was anxious to learn the real cause
of the tenor's _fiasco_. Genovese, the question being put to him, talked
fast, like all men who can intoxicate themselves by the ebullition of
ideas suggested to them by a passion.

"Yes, signori, I love her, I worship her with a frenzy of which I never
believed myself capable, now that I am tired of women. Women play the
mischief with art. Pleasure and work cannot be carried on together.
Clara fancies that I was jealous of her success, that I wanted to
hinder her triumph at Venice; but I was clapping in the side-scenes, and
shouted _Diva_ louder than any one in the house."

"But even that," said Cataneo, joining them, "does not explain why, from
being a divine singer, you should have become one of the most execrable
performers who ever piped air through his larynx, giving none of the
charm even which enchants and bewitches us."

"I!" said the singer. "I a bad singer! I who am the equal of the
greatest performers!"

By this time, the doctor and Vendramin, Capraja, Cataneo, and Genovese
had made their way to the piazzetta. It was midnight. The glittering
bay, outlined by the churches of San Giorgio and San Paulo at the end
of the Giudecca, and the beginning of the Grand Canal, that opens so
mysteriously under the _Dogana_ and the church of Santa Maria della
Salute, lay glorious and still. The moon shone on the barques along the
Riva de' Schiavoni. The waters of Venice, where there is no tide, looked
as if they were alive, dancing with a myriad spangles. Never had a
singer a more splendid stage.

Genovese, with an emphatic flourish, seemed to call Heaven and Earth to
witness; and then, with no accompaniment but the lapping waves, he sang
_Ombra adorata_, Crescentini's great air. The song, rising up between
the statues of San Teodoro and San Giorgio, in the heart of sleeping
Venice lighted by the moo