"What phenomenon?" said Capraja.
"Genovese--who is admirable in the absence of la Tinti, and when he
sings with her is a braying ass."
"He obeys an occult law of which one of your chemists might perhaps
give you the mathematical formula, and which the next century will no
doubt express in a statement full of _x_, _a_, and _b_, mixed up with
little algebraic signs, bars, and quirks that give me the colic; for
the finest conceptions of mathematics do not add much to the sum total
of our enjoyment.
"When an artist is so unfortunate as to be full of the passion he
wishes to express, he cannot depict it because he is the thing itself
instead of its image. Art is the work of the brain, not of the heart.
When you are possessed by a subject you are a slave, not a master; you
are like a king besieged by his people. Too keen a feeling, at the
moment when you want to represent that feeling, causes an insurrection
of the senses against the governing faculty."
"Might we not convince ourselves of this by some further experiment?"
said the doctor.
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