"God help me!" murmured the empress; "she looks as if she were dying! Oh, if she were right with her dismal prophecy of death! What if indeed she is to leave us? Have mercy, O God! I know that I love her too well. She will be taken from me; Heaven will claim from me this sacrifice!" [Footnote: The empress's words. Caraccioli, "Life of Joseph II.," page 87.]
Isabella shuddered, and awakened from her horrid dream. Her eyes fell, her cheeks flushed, and once more her lips parted with a gentle smile. With a tender and appealing look, she turned toward the empress and kissed her hand.
"Pardon me, your majesty," whispered she; "the music has entranced and bewildered me. I was in another world, and was lost to the present."
"The music pleases you, then?" asked the empress.
"Oh, your majesty," cried Isabella, "this is no music to give pleasure; it is the sublimest language of truth and love!"
"Then," said the empress tenderly, "if you prize it so highly, dearest, I will prove to you how dearly I love you, for your verdict and mine disagree. Our next festive day will be that on which Joseph is to be crowned King of Rome. And we shall do homage to the taste of the Queen of Rome by ordering that this opera be repeated on the occasion of her coronation."
Isabella shook her head. "I shall not live long enough to be crowned
Queen of Rome." [Footnote: Isabella's own words. Wraxall, ii., page 394.]
Maria Theresa was about to murmur a reply, when the curtain rose, and the second act of the opera opened.
The audience, who had been loudly canvassing the music, were silenced, and awaited in breathless expectation the unfolding of the plot. Soon came the wonderful scene between Orpheus and the furies who guard the gates of Avernus. The beseeching tones of Orpheus, and the inexorable "No!" of the furies, made every listener tremble. Even Hasse, overcome by the sublimity of the music, bowed his head with the rest; and Metastasio, enraptured with the words, murmured, "Ah, che poesia divina!" Murmurs of applause were heard from every side of the theatre; they grew with every scene, and at last burst forth in wild shouts. It seemed as if the audience were gradually rising to the appreciation of this new and unknown music, until with one accord its matchless beauty burst upon their hearts and overpowered them.
When the curtain fell a second time, the applause knew no bounds. The Gluckites, in triumphant silence, hearkened to the voices of the deeply-moved multitude, who gave full vent to their emotions, and noisily exchanged the thoughts to which the wonderful opera had given birth.