The theatre bills, announced "Norma;" the character bearing that name was to be performed by an Italian singer. What was more probable than that on this evening the Principessa of Lago Maggiore should visit the theatre?

At the hour of opening the doors, Blanden appeared in the vestibule of the playhouse, which turns its melancholy monotonous-looking side to the KÖnigsgarten, and resembles a military store building or laboratory for a Chief of the Ordnance, rather than a temple of art. Blanden watched all comers with painful anxiety; he greeted Professor Reising with his sisters-in-law, who appeared in most striking toilets, in ball costume, which was useless extravagance in the dark apartments of this temple of the muses, grudgingly illuminated by the chandelier.

The gigantic lieutenant appeared also; behind him was borne a not less colossal bouquet.

Both FrÄulein von Dornau entered, without an escort. CÄcilie looked paler than she had done at the sea-side; but Olga was as blooming as though she had just risen from the sacred ocean tide.

There, Regierungsrath Kalzow with his wife! How old and decrepit he had become! How his face, with its worn features, was lost in the stiff white neckcloth! But Miranda walked sturdily, although she seemed to be still thinner, more skeleton-like; she towed her husband behind her, as does a tug-steamer an unwieldy sailing ship.

"Why, there you are, also!" said Dr. Kuhl, greeting Blanden with a powerful shake of the hand. "Signora Bollini must exercise a marvellous power of attraction, indeed! Only look how the crowds pour in."

"So far as I am concerned," replied Blanden, "I am indifferent to theatres, which formerly I never visited. Our dramatic art has outlived itself! Signora Bollini, too, is totally innocent of my becoming faithless to my principles to-day."

"But she deserves that you should do so," said Dr. SchÖner, who had come with Kuhl. "She is worthy of a sacrifice: she is not merely an admired singer who in Barcelona and Florence, as well as in St. Petersburg and Moscow, has celebrated great triumphs; she is above all a beauty, and her movements in acting are marvellously plastic. I do not share your views of the decadence of the drama, but whatever you may think upon the subject, you will not be able to release yourself from the influence of that beauty which is intensified by the stage-setting."

"And what did, then, really lead you into this temple of art, if it is not 'Norma' nor Signora Bollini?"

"A personal meeting that I wish for! Today I only came to the theatre for the sake of its spectators, like hundreds of others, who are not candid enough to confess it."

"Indeed, you are very absent-minded; you have the air of a policeman who, with a warrant of apprehension in his head, musters the throng. We will not disturb you, but wish you every success!"

Blanden remained behind alone, but only when a few late members of the audience arrived, and the overture had already commenced, did he enter one of the stage boxes, where he had engaged a seat, so as to be able to overlook the whole house. He took up his opera-glasses to commence a survey, which extended over boxes, stalls and balcony; he hurried from head to head as one turns over the pages of an album. Even the prettiest little faces did not attract his interest, and, just as little as the buds did the full-blown roses of which there are such an abundance in East Prussia. Every fresh face was a fresh disappointment for him. Meanwhile the curtain had been drawn up; Blanden had not yet completed his survey, and cared little for the Druids upon the stage, who peered at the moonlight through the dark branches, or vowed vengeance upon the Roman legions. Even the two singing Romans inspired him with no interest. Only when suddenly thunders of applause reverberated through the house did he turn his glances towards the stage.

There stood Norma, the vervain's jagged leaves and red shimmering flowers in her hair, the sickle in her hand, the symbol of the changeful moon. There she foretold the decline of Rome, and with elevated sickle she cut the mistletoe off the oak tree; then her arms extended, her countenance turned to the full moon, she greeted that silvery chaste goddess in melting fervent notes, which were followed by tempestuous applause.

Blanden took no part in these expressions of approbation. Since the appearance of the priestess he stood motionless, the incredible robbed him of his self-possession; only yesterday he had seen that harmonious profile when the beautiful woman in the boat looked up at the stars, as Norma did now at the chaste goddess; he had seen it last in the shades of the cedars of the Isola Bella. Signora Bollini was the fairy of those Italian days, the mysterious beauty of the enchanted lake.

He had found that which he had sought, and yet his first sensation was one of disappointment. His principessa was a singer, only a singer! How he had flattered himself in his dreams that a Signora from the upper circles of the Italian nobility had loved him, even though with evanescent, carefully concealed love, and had she been a Lucrezia Borgia, a Bianca Capelli, it was an adventure such as Boccaccio loved to describe. It was a fairy-tale out of the thousand and one nights, into which now the sober illumination of the footlights fell.

A singer who is practised in the art of deception, perhaps accustomed to get up an adventure! All the down seemed to be suddenly swept from the richly coloured wings of these recollections, which had so often fluttered through his dreams! With the charm and enchantment of the mystery the silent food for his vanity had also vanished away. He felt himself to be like Sancho Panza, who, after having been Governor of the island for a long time, found himself transformed into the sentry once more.

"Life," said he, "consists of one course of delusions, but as each delusion is unfolded, life becomes poorer in happiness. But was it only a deplorable deception?"

Blanden did not require much time before he condemned his first feeling to be a hasty emotion. Whether principessa or cantatrice, this Italian woman still remained the splendid creature of his dreams. And she had not deceived him, only he himself!

What feeling, what passion in her singing! What grandiose tragic style in that Norma! How his inmost soul vibrated at that imploring entreaty of love which he believed to be directed to himself--

How he was moved by the few bars with which Norma interrupts Adalgisa's confessions, bars devoted to recollections of other days, to the magic which had once enthralled her also! And to what passion was she urged by the Roman's discovered faithlessness! With grandeur of mind she walked to the self-sacrifice!

An actress who could personate a life so full of soul must possess it herself. If the composer's music nowhere gives the dramatic power of the story with equally overwhelming force, if it soon, as if alarmed at such daring, only wreathed the power with arabesques in which the self-conceited play of notes rocks itself to and fro, the vivacity of the representation in this case perfected the want of creative power on the composer's part, and held all intellects bound in the spell of the tragic grandeur!

She was a principessa in the kingdom of art, and was that not something much loftier than if her ancestors had stood proudly in the golden book of Venice?

Filled with such feelings and thoughts, Blanden joined vigorously in the outbursts of applause with which the finale of the performance was distinguished; yes, in the entr'acte he had bought the last bouquet of the flower-girl, and thrown it to the triumphant actress. She took it up indifferently amongst the others; she did not know from whom it came.

Had she yesterday cast the flowers into the water so as to bury all recollections? Here they returned again as the first greeting of a newly awakening love! Yet she in that bouquet perceived but one of those evidences of homage which were lavished so numerously upon her art!

Not long afterwards Blanden was sitting with Professor Reising, Dr. Kuhl and SchÖner in the comfortable cellar of the Court of Criminal Justice.

Reising was in a good temper; he had shaken off his female retinue; the four sisters had been invited to a tea-party after the theatre.

"Italian music," said Reising, "that is true music! How much Hegel was delighted with the starring tours of those Italian voices in Vienna! Music, like every art, must be the one object; the kingdom of notes has its own action and splendour; the opera singers must sing like nightingales and rejoice in the presumptuousness of song in those ascending and descending runs, in those stirring trills, in those sharp, foaming pearls of self-sufficing capriccios. Who would enquire whether that music is always adapted to the libretto? The story is a necessary evil; it is the perch in the cage, because the bird must sit somewhere.

"Intellectual music, that is the subtlety of the mind. People have compared music with arithmetic only because it rests upon unknown numbers. Good Heavens! then may the musicians at least remain at the four elementary rules, and not lose themselves in the differential and integral calculus! It is a cruel mistake wishing to express every possible thing by music; music can express nothing but the mind's emotions. In all else it acts with divine freedom; I acknowledge that I am an utter Italian in music, and love to revel with it in its own riches!"

"As we, however, possess an opera," replied Blanden, "and as music is bound to dramatic situations, it must also give a suitable expression to them; yet it does not exist merely on account of that expression, else it would move in constant servitude. It is a free art and its own ruler in its dominion!"

"An enchanting Norma such as ours, renders all artistic theories superfluous," cried SchÖner with enthusiasm.

"But to-day," replied Kuhl, "we missed the poems wafted down from the chandelier; on other occasions our friend has a new sonnet for each character. The liberty of nations must wait when Signora Bollini is extolled."

"She is worthy of all laudation," said SchÖner: "but it would be desecration to praise her in inferior verses. My muse is not always solvent, now and then I prefer to be silent."

"I am such a novice in theatrical affairs," said Blanden, "that the fame of actors and actresses is a legend for me! I might drink a glass of wine with a Roscius and know nothing of the honour that was my portion. Who is this Signora Bollini? Is she a genuine or only a theatrical Italian? Since when has she belonged to the stage celebrities? Where has she gained her laurels?"

"These questions," began SchÖner, "I can reply to accurately after the study of theatres, newspapers and the personal information of the culprit herself, for as such she appears to be in your eyes, as you seem to bring a formal impeachment against the actress. She is a true daughter of Hesperia, although she has passed her childhood in Germany, and therefore is as perfect a mistress of our language as she is of her mother tongue. She went upon the stage when very young, she gained her first successes in Milan in la Scala, and in la Pergola in Florence. Italy was the cradle of her renown. Then she sang in Madrid, in London, but always returned again to her own home. Two years ago she made a professional tour in Russia, and it was a special distinction for our KÖnigsberg that she gave a somewhat lengthy series of visitor's performances there; she also then travelled along the coast and through the Province. I do not know wherein lies the power of attraction which our Northern Venice exercises upon the daughter of the South!"

"Perhaps in Dr. SchÖner's verses," suggested Kuhl. "It is a reward to be sung by an East Prussian Leopardi."

"Enough," continued SchÖner, "that Signora Bollini is here once again, probably on her way to Russia for a second time. According to what they say, she proposes very easy conditions to the managers, and is therefore welcomed as a bird of good fortune, like the albatross in Coleridge's poem of the 'Ancient Mariner.'"

"I cannot imagine," replied Kuhl, "that our sober town of pure reason, or our stage fascinate her; some additional secret charm must exist, some secret affection."

"I do not think it," replied SchÖner. "I know all her adorers; there are several amongst them who have serious intentions. The rich young merchant BÖller is even said to have asked her hand in marriage; it is a matter of course that she should have rejected that long-legged stork; Lieutenant Buschmann cherishes a passion for her that is colossal as the figure of that ancient Teuton, a passion which threatened to burst the officer's tight uniform, but that passion, too, is unreciprocated."

"Our friend SchÖner," interposed Kuhl, "is too modest to include himself amongst the number of the beautiful singer's adorers, yet I must exclaim with Spiegelberg, 'Moor, your register has one gap, you have forgotten yourself.'"

"Of course I adore her," replied SchÖner. "I admire the harmony of her being, her talent, her beauty, but I possess too perfect knowledge of the country to open a campaign without any prospect of success; she is most amiable towards us all, but she distinguishes none, and any one who would venture too far to the front would most assuredly sustain discomfiture. What did that brave BÖller gain when he even travelled to Moscow after her? He met with his Beresina in Russia, and returned as disconsolately as once the grande armÉe. One might think that she hopes to conquer an Italian principe or a Russian prince, and until then does not care to rule over any other souls or slaves; yet it is equally possible that she may already possess some silent love, perhaps, in her own home, and may cherish it with invincible faithfulness."

"Those are very kind suppositions," said Professor Reising. "Such a singer, free to go where she will, is a coquette from the cradle. She requires plenty of admirers, because she requires success; she favours none especially, so as not to repel the others. Wheresoever she goes she forms a little ministry for herself, and does the same here; the portfolio of her finances is in her friend von der Klapperwiese's hands; Lieutenant Buschmann is Minister at War, who inspires all enemies with the necessary terror; the chief of the Press-bureau is Dr. SchÖner, and that officer works in prose and verse, writes the official external correspondence, looks after the portraits and biographies in the newspapers and the laudatory and eulogistic poems. If she depart from here, a great Cabinet crisis takes place, the ministry is dismissed, and a new one is formed in each new town."

"According to my views," replied Kuhl, "Signora Bollini would do well to think of a retreat, to marry a Russian prince and to enjoy the comfort which would make it possible for her without arias, without trills and fioriture to rule over thousands of souls."

"Why then?" asked Blanden, who until now had listened silently, but with strained attention to the conversation.

"Because her voice is already ruined."

Dr. Kohl's daring suggestion met with most animated opposition.

"Or--it will soon be so. I possess a sharp ear for such things, I need no stethescope; I can already detect, in her voice a slight autumnal rustle; soon its mellowness will be gone. Believe me--I am an experienced prophet therein, and one of those privileged doctors who proclaim the inevitable evil with greatest certainty. Did I not predict to FrÄulein Burg that her organ was on the wane while she still seemed able to sing down the walls of Jericho with a flourish of trumpets? And how quickly it set in! It crackles and breaks suddenly even if it do still rustle like heavy satin! And there is no remedy for it--I could at most prescribe the Russian prince to the Signora."

"You make our souls shudder with foreboding at this prophecy," cried the Professor, while he looked anxiously at the clock, for he did not wish to reach home later than Euphrasia, because Lori had lately expressed an opinion that being out late was ruinous to his health.

"This medical wisdom," cried SchÖner angrily, "might be capable of spoiling all our enjoyment of life. The gentlemen can no longer cure, but they recognise the least disturbance in the mechanism of life; they carry our verdict of death upon their lips, and know about the period when it will be executed; but to obtain a full pardon from implacable Nature lies quite beyond their capabilities. There I extol the poets; they glorify the beautiful present, the blessed today, and leave to-morrow to the black-visioned prophet and to the uncertain whim of destiny."

The party broke up, Blanden made enquiries of the poet as to the singer's abode, and while he walked alone with Kuhl across the moonlit castle yard, said to him--

"With what a trembling heart I passed through that door when I went to the Frau GrÄfin's court, that beautiful witness of the Apocalypse! Another time has come and wafted away all the spectre, but also has demanded a tardy victim! For me it was a crushing blow, I did not dare to live any longer. From to-day I dare it again, all the spirits of my life are stirred, because that Signora Bollini is my principessa of Lago Maggiore."