"Highness," said Carricchio, "she will not go for long. The Maestro is old and broken; he will be helpless among strangers, hostile or indifferent. She will be friendless; she will be glad to come back;" and there passed over Carricchio's face an unconscious habitual grimace.
"I tell you," said the Prince, "she shall not go at all. She belongs to me: voice and body and soul, she belongs to me."
He was flushed with excitement. In spite of the habitual dignity of manner and of gesture which he could not wholly lose, his appearance, as he stood in the centre of the room before Carricchio, was so strange, so different from its usual lofty quiet, that the latter looked at him with surprise, and even apprehension.
"Mon Prince," he said at last, "beware! Take the warning of an old man. Let her alone. God warns every man once—sometimes twice—seldom a third time. My Prince, let her alone!"
"What, Carricchio!" said the Prince lightly. "Are you also one of us? Are we all in love with a little singing-girl?"
"My Prince," said Carricchio, "it matters little what an old fool like me loves or does not love. I am a broken old Arlecchino, you a Prince. She will have none of us. She alone of all of us—Prince and Princess and clown alike—has solved the riddle which that boy, whom we killed, was sent to teach us. She alone has made her life an art, for she alone has found that art is capable of sacrifice. She alone of all of us has based her art upon nature and upon love. She is passionately devoted to her master—her father in art and life, for he rescued her from poverty and shame. She will follow him through the world. Mon Prince, let her alone."
"To let her go," said the Prince, "would be to spoil everything. Shall I give up a deliberate plan of life, finely conceived and carefully carried out, to gratify the whims of a foolish girl? Why is religion to interfere always with art? Why is sacrifice always to be preached to us? Life is not sacrifice: it is a morbid, monkish idea. Life is success, fruition, enjoyment. Life is an art—religion also should be an art."
"Where there is love," said Carricchio, "there must be sacrifice, and no life is perfect without love. There are only two things capable of sacrifice—nature and love. When art is saturated with nature and elevated by love, it becomes a religion, but religion never becomes an art; for art without nature and without love is partial and selfish, and cannot include the whole of life. You will find, believe me, that if you follow art apart from these two, you have indeed only been following a deception, for it has not only been irreligion, it has been bad art."
"The sphere of religion," said the Prince, "is the present, and its scope the whole of human life. It is, therefore, an art. If art is selfish, so is religion. The most disinterested martyr is selfish, for he is following the dictates of his higher self. I tell you Tina is mine, I want her. She shall not go!"
"You said the same of the boy, Highness," said Carricchio gravely; "yet he went—went a long journey from us all. Mon Prince, beware!"