Act II. The garden of _Carmela's_ house. On the left wall a wooden

staircase. Under this is a gap in the back wall shut in by a railing. It is late evening.

_Carmela_, having cleared the table, goes into the house. _Gennaro_ starts in to warn _Maliella_. She says she will have freedom, rushes up the staircase to her room, where she is seen putting her things together, while she hums, "E ndringhete, ndranghete" (I long for mirth and folly).

She descends with her bundle and is ready to leave. _Gennaro_ pleads with her. As if lost in a reverie, with eyes half-closed, she recalls how _Rafaele_ offered to steal the jewels of the Madonna for her. _Gennaro_, at first shocked at the sacrilege in the mere suggestion, appears to yield gradually to a desperate intention. He bars the way to _Maliella_, locks the gate, and stands facing her. Laughing derisively, she reascends the stairs.

Her laugh still ringing in his ears, no longer master of himself, he goes to a cupboard under the stairs, takes out a box, opens it by the light of the lamp at the table, selects from its contents several skeleton keys and files, wraps them in a piece of leather, which he hides under his coat, takes a look at _Maliella's_ window, crosses himself, and sneaks out.

From the direction of the sea a chorus of men's voices is heard. _Rafaele_ appears at the gate with his Camorrist friends. To the accompaniment of their mandolins and guitars he sings to _Maliella_ a lively waltzlike serenade. The girl, in a white wrapper, a light scarlet shawl over her shoulders descends to the garden. There is a love duet--"in a torrent of passion," according to the libretto, but not so torrential in the score:--"T'amo, sì, t'amo" (I love you, I love you), for _Maliella_; "Stringimi forte" (Cling fast to me) for _Rafaele_; "Oh! strette ardenti" (Rapture enthralling) for both. She promises that on the morrow she will join him. Then _Rafaele's_ comrades signal that someone approaches.

Left to herself, she sees in the moonlight _Gennaro's_ open tool box. As if in answer to her presentiment of what it signifies, he appears with a bundle wrapped in red damask. He is too distracted by his purpose to question her presence in the garden at so late an hour and so lightly clad. Throwing back the folds of the damask, he spreads out on the table, for _Maliella_, the jewels of the Madonna.

_Maliella_, in an ecstacy, half mystic, half sensual, and seemingly visioning in _Gennaro_ the image of the man who promised her the jewels, _Rafaele_, who has set every chord of evil passion in her nature vibrating--no longer repulses _Gennaro_, but, when, at the foot of a blossoming orange tree, he seizes her, yields herself to his embrace;--a scene described in the Italian libretto with a realism that leaves no doubt as to its meaning.