"He feels differently, I know it; I wish now not to meet him, not to desecrate a beautiful moonlight memory with the sober light of day, and yet what is it that ever drives me hither to this desolate land? A dark, incomprehensible longing, that I dare not confess to myself; I feel as if I belonged to him when I stand upon the soil of his home, and when I saw him again the day before yesterday, he recognised me--I saw it, felt it; what is all fame, all exultation of the crowd to me? I yearn for one word from him, he will come, he must come, and because I expect him, I have not sung to-day." "If the stern manager knew that!" "I tremble at the prospect of meeting him, I start up each time the bell is touched; I listen with feverish expectation; I am boundlessly disappointed at every other face, and yet I could hardly endure to see him." The bell was rung; in anxious anticipation Giulia smoothed the dark curls from her brow. Beate, shrugging her shoulders, announced Herr Spiegeler, the indefatigable, irrepressible operatic reporter, who in addition provided the radicalism for many German theatrical newspapers. Giulia, after a silent malediction, assumed a friendly smile and greeted the lame critic, who limped into the room upon his crutch. "Indisposed, beautiful _prima donna_?" said he, with the air of a protector, "our malicious climate is not created for nightingales." "And yet I have heard that in Lithuania the nightingales are very numerous and sing wonderfully." "It may be--in that case they must have been sent to a wrong address, for there is no public there capable of appreciating their melting warbles."