Act II. opens with one of those half humorous, half serious conversations between the Don and Leporello, which ever and anon relieve the story. The servant, stung by the ungrateful and outrageous conduct of his master in the ball-room explosion, announces his determination to quit him; but they are too essential to each other, and the Don soon coaxes, laughs, and bribes him out of that notion. This duett is in real Italian _parlando_ style, a syllable to every note, quick and brief as it is comically expressive; for this enemy of woman’s peace has new business on hand; the unlucky night is not too far gone to try one more adventure. So here follows the summer warmth and beauty of the serenade scene under Donna Elvira’s window, who sits above there, pouring out her nightingale complainings under the stars, in a melody of ravishing sweetness and tenderness, forming the upper part of a _Terzetto_, in which the _sotto voce_ dialogue of the Don and his man below grotesquely blends. He changes garments with Leporello, and lending his own voice, while Leporello gesticulates, in strains of feigned repentance and returning love, entices the too easily persuaded lady down into the arms of his counterfeit, while he takes up his guitar to serenade, not Elvira, but Elvira’s maid, now that the field is clear, in that most graceful little serenading air, which seems so easy and so off-hand, with its light _arpeggio_ accompaniment by violins alone: _Deh vieni alla finestra_. But the fortunate stars of our all-seducing hero seem this night to have forsaken him; again his business is balked. Mirth and melody, fun and sentiment are strangely mingled in this scene, and, indeed, in this whole act. The serenade gets finished; the tree, as it were, is climbed; but before the fruit can be gathered, the game is interrupted by Masetto and the peasants armed, hot from the ball-room scene, in search of the splendid scoundrel. Masetto gets the worst of it; and here we have one of the world’s three or four very choicest and purest gems of melody, Zerlina’s exquisitely tender and comforting song to her poor, bruised, and beaten bridegroom, _Vedrai carino_; so beautifully simple, in the homely key of C natural; so innocently voluptuous; so full of blissful love; so like the balsam (_un certo balsamo_) of which she hints with fond and arch significance! And as she makes him place his hand upon her heart at the words, _sentilo battere_, (feel it beat,) you seem to hear its glad and honest beating in the music. We cannot forbear inserting here the following interpretation of this song, which we have read since our analysis of the opera was made. It is from the pen of an intelligent Russian gentleman, who has written in French and German an admirable Life of Mozart, with a critical examination of his works. We translate from the German copy: