“After all, perhaps she means to keep me here all night,” he thought, and rashly lifted the dish-cover, revealing a vast and heaving plain of macaroni, over which little rills of liquid butter wandered. Parmesan cheese was not lacking to the dish, nor the bland juices of the sliced tomato, and, like the violet by the wayside, the modest garlic added its perfume to the distracting bouquet. Fumaroli was only human, though, as a tenor, divine. He had been shut up for four hours, fasting, in company with a dish of macaroni.... Ah, Heaven! he could endure no longer.... He drew up a chair, grasped fork and spoon—fell to. In the act of finishing the dish, he started, fancying that the silvery tinkle of a feminine laugh sounded at the keyhole. But his faculties were dulled by vast feeding; his anger, like his appetite, had lost its edge. With an effort he disposed of the last shreds of macaroni, the last trickle of butter; and at seven o’clock a waiter, who accidentally unlocked the door of the basement room, awakened a plethoric sleeper from heavy dreams.
“To the Opera House,” was the listless direction he gave the driver of his hired brougham; as one in a dream he entered by the stage-door, and strode to his room.
The curtain had already risen upon grassy lowlands in the neighborhood of Antwerp. Henry, King of Germany, seated under a spreading canvas oak, held court with military pomp. Frederic of Telramond, wizard husband of Ortrud, the witch, had stepped forward to accuse Elsa of the murder of her brother, Gottlieb; the King had cried, “Summon the maid!” and in answer to the command, amidst the blare of brass and the clashing of swords, the De Melzi, draped in pure white, followed by her ladies, and looking the picture of virginal innocence, moved dreamily into view:
“How like an angel!
He who accuses her
Must surely prove
This maiden’s guilt.”
Ah! had those who listened to the thrilling strains that poured from those exquisite lips but guessed, as Elsa described the appearance of her dream-defender, her shining Knight, and sank upon her knees in an ecstasy of passionate prayer, that the celestial deliverer was at that moment gasping in the agonies of indigestion!
“Let me behold
That form of light!”