In _Angela_ Cui made a supreme effort to achieve breadth of style and to break through the limitations he had imposed upon himself by adopting the methods and peculiarities of such composers as Schumann and Chopin. But this effort seems to have been followed by a speedy reaction. After the appearance of _Angelo_ his manner becomes more distinctly finical and artificial. His military duties and his literary work made increasing demands on his time, and the flow of inspiration dropped below its highest level. Songs and miniatures for pianoforte were now his chief preoccupation, and, greater undertakings being perhaps out of the question, he became absorbed in the cult of small and finished forms, and fell increasingly under the influence of Schumann. It was at this time that he wrote the additional act for _The Captive in the Caucasus_, to which reference has already been made. Here the contrast between the simplicity and sincerity of his first style, and the formal polish and "preciousness" of his middle period, is very pronounced. The use of local colour in _The Captive in the Caucasus_ is not very convincing. Cui is no adept in the employment of Oriental themes, and the Caucasus has never been to him the source of romantic inspiration it has proved to so many other Russian poets and composers. Another four-act opera _The Saracen_, the subject taken from a play by the elder Dumas entitled "Charles VII. chez ses grands Vasseaux," was first performed at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1899, and revived by the Private Opera Company at Moscow in 1902. The subject is gloomy and highly dramatic, with sensational elements almost as lurid as anything in _William Ratcliff_. The interest of the opera fluctuates between the love of the King for Agnes Sorel--two figures which stand out in relief from the dark historical background of that period, when Jeanne d'Arc was fighting the battles of her weak and indolent sovereign--and the domestic affairs of the saturnine Count Saverny and his wife Bérangère; complicated by the inner drama which is carried on in the soul of the Saracen slave Jakoub, who is in love with the Countess, and finally murders her husband at her instigation. As usual, Cui is most successful in the purely lyrical numbers--the love scenes between the King and Agnes Sorel. Here the music, almost effeminately tender, has that touching and sensuous quality which caused a celebrated French critic to write of Cui as "the Bellini of the North." The "berceuse," sung, strangely enough, by the harsh Count de Saverny as he keeps watch over the King's son on the threshold of his bed-chamber, is a strikingly original number which should be better known in the concert-room.