TALY had too often been treated
by the compromising, merely discontented, dallying aristocracy. Camilla
cries to him, 'Have faith in me! have faith in me! have faith in me!'
That is the sole answer to his accusations, his threats of eternal
loathing, and generally blustering sublimities. She cannot defend
herself; she only knows her innocence. He is inexorable, being the
guilty one of the two. Turning from him with crossed arms, Camilla
sings:

'Mother! it is my fate that I should know Thy miseries, and in thy
footprints go. Grief treads the starry places of the earth: In thy long
track I feel who gave me birth. I am alone; a wife without a lord; My
home is with the stranger--home abhorr'd!--But that I trust to meet thy
spirit there. Mother of Sorrows! joy thou canst not share: So let me
wander in among the tombs, Among the cypresses and the withered blooms.
Thy soul is with dead suns: there let me be; A silent thing that shares
thy veil with thee.'

The wonderful viol-like trembling of the contralto tones thrilled
through the house. It was the highest homage to Vittoria that no longer
any shouts arose nothing but a prolonged murmur, as when one tells
another a tale of deep emotion, and all exclamations, all ulterior
thoughts, all gathered tenderness of sensibility, are reserved for the
close, are seen heaping for the close, like waters above a dam.
The flattery of beholding a great assembly of human creatures bound
glittering in wizard subservience to the voice of one soul, belongs to
the artist, and is the cantatrice's glory, pre-eminent over whatever
poor glory this world gives. She felt it, but she felt it as something
apart. Within her was the struggle of Italy calling to Italy: Italy's
shame, her sadness, her tortures, her quenchless hope, and the view of
Freedom. It sent her blood about her body in rebellious volumes. Once it
completely strangled her notes. She dropped the ball of her chin in her
throat; paused without ceremony; and recovered herself. Vittoria had too
severe an artistic instinct to court reality; and as much as she could
she from that moment corrected the underlinings of Agostino's libretto.

On the other hand, Irma fell into all his traps, and painted her
Austrian heart with a prodigal waste of colour and frank energy:

'Now Leonardo is my tool:
Camilla is my slave:
And she I hate goes forth to cool
Her rage beyond the wave.
Joy! jo