And these were, first, that the demand of the Count Ludovic was not acceded to; the second, that his preferred rival was André, an obscure musician with a weak brain; and, even worse than that, that all his merit rested in his attempt at the assassination of the object of his passion. I give the facts in their entire simplicity. Truth is worth more than its resemblance; so any extenuation, any covering of phrases, would be useless, and neither make them accepted nor understood by practical people--those who judge every thing from their own stand-point, and name it so well "common sense." Paganina wished to repair the evil of which she was the cause. She found "at her hand" the sacrifice she desired. From the terrible night passed at the Château Sarrasin, André had never resumed the complete use of his reason. To have the right to devote herself to him, his cousin married him; surrounded him with every care, and watched over the flame of his vacillating intelligence with a love more maternal than conjugal. In our existence, many things are strange. She never seemed the wife of André. She lived with him as a sister. And can you imagine what was her life, _tête-à-tête_ with an idiot? Calculate the energy to sustain, and the patience to calm him. When the spectres of madness approached the poor invalid, warned by his cries of terror, Paganina ran to him. Her presence, and the sound of her voice, dispelled the phantoms. Delivered from his terrors, he threw himself at her feet, covered her hands with kisses and tears, and invoked her as his angel, swearing to her inviolable obedience. Since King David's time, we all know the power of music to dispel the spirits of darkness. Paganina made use of it, and found consolation in the mingled studies that brought her cousin such relief. So even they had hours of happiness. The genius, too, of Paganina was not entirely lost to her contemporaries. She was heard once in Milan, in a religious ceremony; and once again in Germany, where she had gone, nearly two years after her marriage, to make, with André, a pilgrimage to the house of her father. For her it was the song of the swan, for her exhausted and uncertain life went out soon afterward. This song of songs will reveal her last thoughts and conclude her history. XXXV. In one of those festivals which are the noble pleasure and the glory of Germany, an oratorio was to be given for the first time, the expectation of which excited a passionate impatience. This composition, called _The Angels' Fall_, is due to a musician whose name will descend to the latest posterity, carried onward by the tempests his genius has evoked. The part of the archangel Lucifer was awarded to Paganina. These phlegmatic Germans, when they give themselves to enthusiasm, lose all bounds; and Paganina might have been satisfied could she have known her success; but her soul was elsewhere.