Al dolce guidami
Castel natio.
The song of the soul which at first descends, little by little, and finally, in greater sweetness gives itself up to its love, to rise again, locked in his embrace, in an impulse of desire towards some distant light which shall complete its happiness. She sang, and Franco, carried away, fancied that she longed to be united to him in that lofty region of the soul from which she had, until now, excluded him; that in this perfect union, she longed to be guided by him towards the goal of his ideals. A sob rose in his throat, and the rippling lake, the great tragic mountains, those eyes of things fixed upon the moon, the very light of the moon itself, everything, was filled with his indefinable sentiment. And so, when beyond the broken image of the orb, silver lights flashed for a moment as far as Bisgnago, and even into the shadowy gulf of the Doi, he was moved, as if they had been mysterious signals concerning him, which lake and moon were exchanging, while Luisa finished the verse:
Ai verdi platani,
Al cheto rio
Che i nostri mormora
Sospi ancor.
Pasotti's voice called from the terrace—
"Brava!"
And Uncle Piero shouted—
"Tarocco!"
At the same moment they heard the oars of a boat coming from Porlezza, and a bassoon mimicked the air of Anne Boleyn. Franco, who had seated himself in the stern of his boat, started to his feet, crying delightedly—
"Who goes there?" A fine, big, bass voice answered him—