"When I look at you, little one," Carricchio went on, "I feel almost as I do when the violins break in upon the jar and fret of the wittiest dialogue. Jest and lively fancy—these are the sweets of life, no doubt—and humorous thought and speech and gesture—but they are not this divine art, they are not rest. They shrivel and wither the brain. The whole being is parched, the heart is dry in this sultry, piercing light. But when the stringed melodies steal in, and when the rippling, surging arpeggios and crescendos sweep in upon the sense, and the stilled cadences that lull and soothe—then, indeed, it is like moisture and the gracious dew. It is like sleep; the strained nerves relax; the overwrought frame, which is like dry garden mould, is softened, and the flowers spring up again."
Carricchio paused; but as Mark said nothing, he went on again.
"The other life is gay, lively, bright, full of excitement and interest, of tender pity even, and of love—but this is rest and peace. The other is human life, but what is this? Art? Ah! but a divine art. Here is no struggle, no selfish desire, no striving, no conflict of love or of hate. It is like silence, the most unselfish thing there is. I have, indeed, sometimes thought that music must be the silence of heaven."
"The silence of heaven!" said Mark, with open eyes. "The silence of heaven! What, then, are its words?"
"Ah! that," said the old clown, smiling, but with a sad slowness in his speech, "is beyond me to tell. I can hear its silence, but not its voice."
V.
The private theatre in the palace was a room of very moderate size, for the audience was necessarily very small; in fact, the stage was larger than the auditorium. The play took place in the afternoon, and there was no artificial light; many of the operatic performances in Italy, indeed, took place in the open air.
Yet, though the time of day and the natural light deprived the theatre of much of the strangeness and glamour with which it is usually associated, and which so much impress a youth who sees it for the first time, the effect of the first performance upon Mark was very remarkable. He was seated immediately behind the Prince. Far from being delighted with the play, he was overpowered as it went on by an intense melancholy horror. When the violins, the flutes, and the fifes began the overture, a new sense seemed given to him, which was not pleasure but the intensest dread. If the singing of the Signorina had been a shock to him, accustomed as he was only to the solemn singing of his childhood, what must this elfish, weird, melodious music have seemed, full of gay and careless life, and of artless unconscious airs which yet were miracles of art? He sat, terrified at these delicious sounds, as though this world of music without thought or conscience were a wicked thing. The shrill notes of the fifes, the long tremulous vibration of the strings, seemed to draw his heart after them. Wherever this wizard call might lead him it seemed he would have to follow the alluring chords.
But when the acting began his terror became more intense. The grotesque figures seemed to him those of devils, or at the best of fantastic imps or gnomes. He could understand nothing of the dialogue, but the gestures, the laughter, the wild singing, were shocking to him. When the Signorina appeared, the strange intensity of her colour, the brilliancy of her eyes, and what seemed to him the freedom of her gestures and the boldness of her bewitching glances, far from delighting, as they seemed to do all the others, made him ready to weep with shame and grief. He sank back in his seat to avoid the notice of the Prince, who, indeed, was too much absorbed in the music and the acting to remember him.