"Here's romance, indeed! You want us both to
become students again, and to have the old days at Naples back again--"
"No, no, no!" she said, shaking her head. "It is the future I think of.
I wish to hear you in grand opera or in oratorio--I wish to see you a
great artist--that is something noble, something ambitious, something to
work for day and night. Ah, Leo, when I hear Mr. Santley sing 'Why do
the nations'--when I see the thousands and thousands of people sitting
entranced, then I say to myself, 'There is something grand and noble to
speak to all these people--to lift them above themselves, to give them
this pure emotion, surely that is a great thing--it is high, like
religion--it is a purification--it is--'" But here she stopped, with a
little gesture of despair. "No, no, Leo, I cannot tell you--I have not
enough English."
"It's all very well," said he, "for you to talk about Santley; but where
will you get another voice like his?"
"Leo, you can sing finer music than 'The Starry Night,'" she said. "You
have the capacity. Ah, but you enjoy too much; you are petted and
spoiled, yes? you have not a great ambition--"
"I'll tell you what I seem to have, though, Nina," said he.
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