 Saskia Georgini is going to play the list transcription from Aida. When Hans Kastorp is in the sanatorium, as I said, the gramophone arrives, and he listens to lots of different sorts of music, and one of the pieces of music he listens to a lot is Aida, and I'll just read you a little bit from the novel. One small group of records contained the closing scenes of a grandiose opera overflowing with melodic genius, written by one of Haerset and Brini's compatriots, an old southern master of musical drama who had composed it in the second half of the previous century on commission from an oriental prince as part of solemn ceremonies at the dedication of a work of technology which would bring nations closer together. Hans Kastorp was more or less familiar with the plot, knew the rough outline of the tragic fate of Radames, Amneris and Aida, who sang to him from the cabinet, an incomparable tenor, a stately mezzo with that splendid break in the middle of her register, and a silvery soprano. It was all in Italian, but he understood more or less what they sang, not every word, but enough here and there, given his knowledge of the plot and his sympathy for its situations, a personal empathy that had increased each time he played the four or five records until it now had become a genuine infatuation.