' We go to see the costumes of the
beautiful English ladies. Why should you come? You would not leave the
young lady all alone in the box?"
"Calabressa," he said, frankly, "I am going away to-morrow morning: do
you understand that?"
Calabressa bowed gravely.
"To comprehend that is easy. Allons, let us play out the little plot for
the amusement of that rogue of a Natalushka. And if she does not thank
me--eh bien! perhaps her papa will: who knows?"
Before the overture began that evening, Brand was in his seat in the
stalls; and he had scarcely sat down when he knew, rather than saw, that
certain figures were coming into the box which he had been covertly
watching. The opera was _Fidelio_--that beautiful story of a wife's
devotion and courage, and reward. As he sat and listened, he knew she
was listening too; and he could almost have believed it was her own
voice that was pleading so eloquently with the jailer to let the poor
prisoner see the light of day for a few minutes in the garden. Would not
that have been her prayer, too, in similar circumstances? Then Leonora,
disguised as a youth, is forced to assist in the digging of her own
husband's grave, Pizarro enters; the unhappy prisoners are driven back
to their cells and chains, and Leonora can only call down the vengeance
of Heaven on the head of the tyrant.
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