"Even to obstinacy," said he, "she pushes her care for her mother. The last time, when she observed that mother saw her grow pale under the dance, she immediately ceased. To me alone she shows her whole heart, and every drop of blood, and all innocent tears therein; especially does she believe something in respect to the future, which she anxiously conceals from mother." "She smiled to herself just before she went away," said Albano, and drew Charles's hand over his eyes, "as if she saw up there a being from the veiled world." "Didst thou too see that?" replied Charles. "And then did her lip stir? O friend, God knows what infatuates her; but this is certain, she firmly believes she is to die next year." Albano would not let him speak further. Too intensely excited, he pressed himself to his friend's breast; his heart beat wildly, and he said: "O brother, remain always my friend!" They went down. In the apartment which adjoined Liana's they found her piano-forte open. Now that was just what the Count had missed. In passion--even in mere fire of the brain--one grasps not so much at the pen as at the string; and in that state alone does musical fantasying succeed better than poetic. Albano, thanking, meanwhile, the muse of sweet sounds that there were forty-four transitions,[137] seated himself at the keys, with the intention now to beat a musical fire-drum, and roar like a storm into the still ashes, and drive out a clear, sparkling swarm of tones. He did it, too, and well enough, and better and better; but the instrument struggled, rebelled. It was built for a female hand, and would only speak in female tones, with lute-plaints, as a woman with a friend of her own sex. Charles had never heard him play so, and was astonished at such fulness. But the reason was, the Lector was not there; before certain persons--and he was one of them--the playing hand freezes, so that one only labors and lumbers to and fro in a pair of leaden gloves; and, secondly, before a multitude it is easier playing than before one, because the latter stands definitely before the soul, the former floats vaguely. And, besides all that, blessed Albano, thou knowest who hears thee. The morning air of hope flutters around thee in tones,--the wild life of youth stalks with vigorous limbs and loud strides up and down before thee,--the moonlight, undesecrated by any gross earthly light, hallows the sounding apartment. Liana's last songs lie open before thee, and the advancing moonshine will let thee read them soon,--and the nightingale in the mother's neighboring chamber contends with thy tones, as if summoned by the Tuba to the field.