“I thought of the same thing a few days ago,” replied Andrea. “I mentioned you to the secretary of the Austrian Embassy, and you have permission to recross the Alps as soon as you please. I have a castle in Croatia which I rarely visit. There you may combine the offices of gate-keeper, butler, and steward, with two hundred crowns a year. Your wife will have as much for doing all the rest of the work. You may make all the experiments you please _in anima vili_, that is to say on the stomach of my vassals. Here is a cheque for your traveling expenses.” Giardini kissed the Count’s hand after the Neapolitan fashion. “Excellenza,” said he, “I accept the cheque, but beg to decline the place. It would dishonor me to give up my art by losing the opinion of the most perfect epicures, who are certainly to be found in Paris.” When Andrea arrived at Gambara’s lodgings, the musician rose to welcome him. “My generous friend,” said he, with the utmost frankness, “you either took advantage, last evening, of the weakness of my brain to make a fool of me, or else your brain is no more capable of standing the test of the heady liquors of our native Latium, than mine is. I will assume this latter hypothesis; I would rather doubt your digestion than your heart. Be this as it may, henceforth I drink no more wine--for ever. The abuse of good liquor last evening led me into much guilty folly. When I remember that I very nearly----” He gave a glance of terror at Marianna. “As to the wretched opera you took me to hear, I have thought it over, and it is, after all, music written on ordinary lines, a mountain of piled-up notes, _verba et voces_. It is but the dregs of the nectar I can drink in deep draughts as I reproduce the heavenly music that I hear! It is a patchwork of airs of which I could trace the origin. The passage ‘_Gloire à la Providence_’ is too much like a bit of Handel; the chorus of knights is closely related to the Scotch air in _La Dame Blanche_; in short, if this opera is a success, it is because the music is borrowed from everybody’s--so it ought to be popular. “I will say good-bye to you, my dear friend. I have had some ideas seething in my brain since the morning that only wait to soar up to God on the wings of song, but I wished to see you. Good-bye; I must ask forgiveness of the Muse. We shall meet at dinner to-night--but no wine; at any rate, none for me. I am firmly resolved----” “I give him up!” cried Andrea, flushing red. “And you restore my sense of conscience,” said Marianna. “I dared not appeal to it! My friend, my friend, it is no fault of ours; he does not want to be cured.” Six years after this, in January 1837, such artists as were so unlucky as to damage their wind or stringed instruments, generally took them to the Rue Froid-Manteau, to a squalid and horrible house, where, on the fifth floor, dwelt an old Italian named Gambara.