The counsellor began to encourage him, and approaching him said, with a paternal smile,—
“Courage, Senhor Brito! Come, come, courage!”
Luiza played a prelude, and Bazilio began to sing, in a voice full and of good quality, his high notes resounding through the parlor. The counsellor, standing upright beside his chair, listened attentively, his head bent down, as by the weight of his responsibility as judge and critic, his dark spectacles forming a contrast to his bald forehead, which was rendered still more pallid by the heat.
Bazilio sang with simplicity, but his voice was full of a grave and passionate melancholy as he pronounced the words:—
“As in the dark sea,
There are depths in my heart.”
An anonymous poet had translated the verses for the “Ladies’ Almanac,” prefixing to them a mysterious dedication. Luiza had copied them with her own hand from between the lines of the music. Bazilio sang the last verses with an intonation of dignified melancholy:—
“On its surface are storms,
In its depths there are pearls.”
The expressive eyes of Luiza were fixed on the music before her, or cast from time to time a rapid glance at Bazilio. At the final note, which she prolonged on the piano, giving it an expression of passionate appeal, Bazilio’s voice had all the force of an invocation:—