"Let me consider it, weigh it--not too hastily accede to the transient idea! Too much is at stake for me--for you!"
"A leaf in the wind--and all is done!"
"A leaf in the wind?" said Giulia thoughtfully "is my life not one already? And if your plan miscarry, if they catch you--?"
"From my childhood I have been used to walk on narrow paths, often have wandered with my father across the steep boundary roads of the Italian Tyrol; with him have crouched under rocky boulders, or in concealment behind the lofty Arves, have slided down glaciers without being afraid of the yawning crevasses in which death lurked! They shall not catch me, and if such an incredible thing were to happen, well it would only befall me! You may be calm and need have no fear."
Giulia still hesitated, and begged for a few more days for reflection.
Meanwhile the impressario could be appeased no longer, and Giulia was obliged to appear as Rosina!
While she had been nursing Blanden, excluded from the world, her enemies had been indefatigably active in destroying her character. Buschmann had kept his word, and in revenge had spoken everywhere with most ruthless exaggerations of her affair with Blanden. The duel, it is true, had not come to the official knowledge of the authorities, but it was spoken of in every circle. People pitied Blanden, but with the pity soon was mingled the condemning verdict, "he loves adventures!" The Signora herself, however, appeared as one of those intriguing prime donne, who know how to attract a number of lovers and admirers, and then set them one against another, so that some fatal scandal may show the power of their beauty in high relief.
In this troubled domain of public opinion, Spiegeler now cast his evil seed--notice after notice full of piquant stings, innuendoes, unmistakable hints. In his paper he had an article, "Behind the Scenes;" there Giulia was the heroine. In the most absurd paragraphs, she was not named, but none could fail to guess it was she. Side by side with them appeared criticising treatises upon the art of song, containing most violent attacks upon Signora Bollini, who was invariably held up as an appalling example of bad mannerisms and taste. Müller von Stallupöhnen, who with his ivory bâton as yet had conducted none of his own operas, supported the journalist, so void of musical knowledge, in this labour. Had not the directors of the East Sea town already rejected four of his operas, and favoured Italian music in a marked manner by the Signora's long engagement?
And what were these Italian composers compared with him? His music was full of deep meaning, truly dramatic, besides which every character had its musical brief, and as Shakespeare's kings were ushered in by a flourish of trumpets, so were his heroes by a few bars of instrumental performance. He scorned all that was pleasantly unmeaning, all that was attractively melodious; when his heroes sang, it was but a musical mode of speaking, to which the orchestra imparted all sharper accents, and a few significant inter-punctuations. But when the tempest of his genius stirred up the depths of the orchestra, so that in almost every bar some old musical rule suffered shipwreck, and the most outrageous impossibilities, the most startling dissonances dashed into the air like spectral water spouts out of the foaming, splashing waves; then indeed must enthusiasm, ecstasy know no bounds, and even the public be transformed into a stormy, raging mass, out of which the thunder of applause should break loose as if with elementary power. This Müller had, it is true, never experienced, but he saw and heard it in imagination. If he could only once touch the conductors desk with that ebon magic wand, this unbounded exultation of delight must be set free. But it never came about; the directors were to blame. Instead of it the coquettish tone-muse of Italy, which is so undramatic that she represents Luciâ di Lammermoor's madness in the most lively dance music, flaunted upon the stage with all her tinsel of trills and fioriture. In such a frame of mind, Müller von Stallupöhnen helped the venomous reporters to lay traps for the directors and for the wicked representative of Italian monkey-like art.
On the evening of the performance of the "Barbière" the house was filled, but a peculiar disquiet prevailed, as if some unusual event were in the air. Kuhl sat in the stalls beside his Cäcilie, who now appeared to be inseparable from him, and near poet Schöner.