"Her voice is unforgettable," Stelio went on, after a pause, having found his courage. "Its power is amazing. From that first evening, I have thought that that singer might be the marvelous instrument for my great work. I wish she would consent to sing the lyric parts of my tragedy, the odes that arise from the symphonies and resolve themselves into figures of the dance at the end, between episodes. La Tanagra has consented to dance. I have confidence in your good offices, dear friend, to obtain also the consent of Donatella Arvale. Thus the Dionysiac trinity would be reëstablished in a perfect manner on the new stage, for the joy of mankind."
Even while he spoke he realized that his words had a false ring, that his unconscious air contrasted too crudely with the dark shadow on the woman's face. In spite of himself, he had exaggerated his frank tone in speaking of Donatella merely as an instrument of art, a purely ideal force to be drawn into the circle of his magnificent enterprise. In spite of himself, disturbed by the anxiety in that soul so near his own, he had leaned slightly toward deception. Certainly what he had said was the exact truth, but his friend had demanded from him another truth. He broke off suddenly, unable to endure the sound of his own words. He felt that at that hour, between the actress and himself, art had no meaning, no vital value. Another force dominated them, more imperious, more disquieting. The world created by intellect seemed inert as the ancient stones on which they trod. The only real and formidable power was the poison running in their human blood. The will of the one said: "It is my will that you shall love and serve me, wholly, mine alone, body and soul." The will of the other said: "It is my will that you shall love and serve me, but while I live I shall renounce nothing that may appeal to my wish and fancy." The struggle was bitter and unequal.
As she remained silent, unconsciously hastening her steps, he prepared himself to face the other truth.
"I understand, of course, that that was not what you wished to know."
"You are right: it was not that. Well?"
She turned to him with a sort of convulsive violence that reminded him of her fury one far-off evening, when she had cried madly: "Go! Run! She awaits you!"
At this moment a workman met them, and offered to show them over the neighboring glass factory.
"Yes, let us go in there," said La Foscarina, hurriedly following the workman. Presently they reached the furnace room, and were enveloped in its fiery breath, as they gazed at an incandescent altar, the glow from which dazzled their eyes with a painful glare.
—To disappear, to be swallowed up, to leave no sign!—cried the woman's heart, intoxicated with the thought of destruction.—In one second that fire could devour me like a dry stick, a bundle of straw.—And she went nearer to the open mouths in which she could see the molten flame, more resplendent than a midsummer sun, rolling around the earthen pots in which the shapeless mass was melting; the workmen, standing around, awaited the right moment to approach with iron tubes to shape that mass with the breath from their lips and the instruments of their art.
—O virtue of Fire!—thought the Inspirer, turned from his anxiety by the miraculous beauty of the element that had become to him as familiar as a brother, since the day he had found the revealing melody.—Ah, that I might give to the life of the creatures that love me the perfection of the forms to which I aspire! That I might fuse all their weaknesses in some white heat, and make of the product obedient matter in which to impress the commandments of my heroic will and the images of my pure poetry! Why, my friend, why will you not be the divine living statue molded by my spirit, the work of faith and sorrow whereby our lives might surpass even our art? Why are we so near resembling ordinary lovers, who lament and curse? When I heard from your lips those admirable words: 'I can do one thing that love alone cannot do,' I believed indeed that you could give me more than love. You must be able always to do those things that love can do, besides those it cannot do, in order to meet my insatiable nature.—