In the weak state of his
nerves his sensations were so poignant that it was all he could do to
keep back his tears.
'Oh, dearest Maria!' exclaimed Donna Francesca, kissing her fondly on
the hair when she stopped.
Andrea could not utter a word; he remained seated where he was, with his
back to the light and his face in shadow.
'Please go on,' said Francesca.
She sang an Arietta by Antonio Salieri, then she played a Toccata by
Leonardo Leo, a Gavotte by Rameau, a Gigue by Sebastian Bach. Under her
magic fingers the music of the eighteenth century lived again--so
melancholy in its dance airs, that sound as if they were intended to be
danced to in a languid afternoon of a Saint Martin's summer, in a
deserted park, amid silent fountains and statueless pedestals, on a
carpet of dead roses by pairs of lovers on the point of ceasing to love
one another.
CHAPTER IV
'Let down a rope of your hair to me that I may climb up,' Andrea called
laughingly from the terrace below to Donna Maria, where she stood
between two pillars of the loggia opening out of her rooms.
It was morning, and she had come out into the sun to dry her wet hair,
which hung round her like a heavy mantle, and accentuated the soft
pallor of her face. The black border of the vivid orange-coloured awning
hung above her head like a frieze, such as one sees round the antique
Greek vases of the Campagna.
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