“Nay,” answered his companion, “I have no fear. He has youth, health, ambition, to sustain him; and though I know he feels——”
“But you know not Antonio as I do, Ronza,” rejoined the other. “It is the exquisite sensibility of his nature, the deep and passionate feeling hid under his graceful and composed exterior, that, even more than qualities merely professional, has contributed to his fame as the first of modern singers. And this exquisitely toned instrument, that yields such melody to the lightest touch, may be as easily shattered.”
“He loved his mother devotedly; but—cielo—did he expect to survive her?”
“Ah! she was more than mother to him; he owed her his intellectual, his spiritual being. She directed his pure soul to the enjoyments alone fitted for him; she led him to the shrine of Art. No, Ronza, do not blame his grief.”
“I do not blame it. I only say that the deepest wound, even in natures like his, may the sooner be healed! But let us go in.”
The two friends ascended the steps, and knocked. They were admitted, and as they anticipated, found the person they had come to seek, plunged in a grief that defied all consolation—the more to be dreaded, as his outward manner was cold and calm. It was the snow upon the mountain, whose breast was consuming in volcanic fires.
“And yet I am grateful for your coming,” he said, after every commonplace source of consolation had been exhausted in their kind efforts to divert his mind from the contemplation of the calamity that had crushed him. “I cannot now say how grateful, but you will forgive my lack of words. Will you pardon, also, Count Albert, my entreating you to take charge of these papers?”
And opening a drawer, he took out several letters and handed them to the count.
“How—you do not now think of leaving Milan?”
“No—but I retire from the world. To-morrow I enter the Convent di ——.”