He is--everybody knows it--he is la Vittoria's lover.' Countess Lena uttered that sentence in Italian.

The soft tongue sent it like a coiling serpent through Wilfrid's veins.

In English or in German it would not have possessed the deadly meaning.
She may have done it purposely, for she and her sister Countess Anna studied his face.

The lifting of the curtain drew all eyes to the stage.
Rocco Ricci's baton struck for the opening of one of his spirited choruses; a chorus of villagers, who sing to the burden that Happiness, the aim of all humanity, has promised to visit the earth this day, that she may witness the union of the noble lovers, Camillo and Camilla.

Then a shepherd sings a verse, with his hand stretched out to the impending castle.