XI.
This evening, then, the organist and his two children had arrived on the elevation that commands the residence of the Ligonieri, and were looking about them. There was a fête at the Château Sarrasin.
The grand salon of the ground floor was illuminated, and crowded with a brilliant assembly of guests. Long waves of light came from the windows and doors, and showed the crowd pressing around every opening, and in the shadows revealed groups seated attentively at cards.
All heads were turned toward one point; all looks were in the same direction, and attached themselves to a woman standing in the centre of the light, and surrounded by a chorus and a numerous orchestra.
This woman was clothed in green, and wore a crown of ivy, the ornament of the old bacchantes. A green diamond threw its lustrous rays from her impure forehead. She sang—not the songs that carry tired souls into the regions of the ideal, and make them forget for a moment the sadness of earth; but guilty joys and culpable pleasures were her theme. The metallic voice sang in response to her chorus; and, becoming more and more excited, the quick, passionate notes mounted into a demoniacal laugh. How sad, how true it is, that the human soul, once beyond the bounds of purity, rejoices in and receives new excitement from the delirium of blasphemy.
XII.
Attracted by the light, Paganina advanced toward the precipice. The passionate music had turned her brain. Her growing agitation became extreme, and she betrayed it in gestures and ardent words. When Master Swibert called her, she refused to obey.
Understanding at last, her father rose, pale as a corpse.
"Unfortunate child!" he cried, "thy bad angel is approaching thee. Now comes the hour when I regret thy birth. God grant that I may not be punished for having shown thee the spectacle of evil thou comprehendest so quickly."
The child advances, her father follows, and she begins to run. Wildly through the midst of the rocks she risks her life at every step. Her father, breathless, pursues her, frightened, and covered with a cold perspiration. His eyes, grown large already with fear, see his daughter precipitated into an endless abyss; and discover, also, in the future another abyss still more shadowed and more horrible, where, perhaps, will be lost the deeply-loved soul of his child.