Only a poor monk dying of love in a monastery, tenderly and truly loving to the bitter end.

Dio mio! there are perhaps many such.

But a monk like this, with a face like a conqueror, set square in its whiteness, and yet so wretched to see in his poor patched frock and his bare feet; a monk, too, not acting love, but really and truly ready to die for a beautiful woman not thirty feet from him in the house; above all, a monk with a voice that speaks like the clarion call of the day of judgment in its wrath, and murmurs more plaintively and sadly in sorrow than ever the poor Peri sighed at the gates of Paradise--such a monk, what could he not make people feel?
The great crowd of men and women sat utterly stilled and intent till he had sung the very last note.

Not a sound was heard to offend the sorrow that spoke from the boy's lips.

Then all those people seemed to draw three long breaths of wonder--a pause, a thrilling tremor in the air, and then there burst to the roof such a roar of cries, such a huge thunder of hands and voices, that the whole house seemed to rock with it, and even in the street outside they say the noise was deafening.
Alone on the stage stood Nino, his eyes fixed on Hedwig von Lira in her box.