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BERLIN, March 1, 1874.
I went the other evening to the Opera ball I wrote you of in my last. The whole opera house, stage and all, was floored over, and magnificently decorated with evergreens, mirrors, fountains, and flowers. The tickets are sold for some charitable purpose. Only nice people can get in, because the whole thing is systematically arranged, and nobody can give their tickets to anybody else. I got mine through Mr. Bancroft, and I went with two other ladies and a gentleman.
We went very early, so as to get a box to sit in, and never shall I forget the first effect of the ball-room! That immense polished floor stretching out like one vast mirror or sheet of ice, the fountains flashing at the sides, the walls wreathed with green, a big orchestra sitting in the balcony at each end, and about a hundred pairs of magnificently dressed ladies and gentlemen descending the stairs into the rooms and promenading about. Light, diamonds, colour, everywhere. Oh, it was perfectly fairy-like! The floor was built over the tops of the chairs in the parquette, and the entrance was through the royal box, which is just in the centre of the opera house, facing the stage. This box is like a large recess, of course, and not like the ordinary boxes. There was an entrance on each side, coming in from the corridor, and a flight of broad steps, carpeted, had been improvised, which led from it down to the floor. It looked perfectly dazzling to see the pairs come in from both sides at once and descend the steps, and the ladies' dresses were displayed to perfection. Such toilets I never saw. The women were covered with lace, feathers, and diamonds. The simpler dresses were of tarletane (mine included!) but as they were quite fresh they gave a very dressy air. We had a splendid box, first rank, and the second from the proscenium boxes on the left, in which sat the royal family. In the box between us and the latter sat the wife of the French ambassador with the Countess von Seidlewitz and her sister, and behind them was a formidable array of magnificent-looking officers in full uniform, their breasts flashing with stars and orders and silver chains.
The Countess von Seidlewitz is a famous court beauty and is lady of honour to the Princess Carl (sister of the Empress). She sat just next to me, as only the partition of the box was between us, and she was the most beautiful woman I saw—perfectly imperial, in fact—white and magnificent as a lily. Her features were perfectly regular, and she had a proudly-cut mouth, and such dazzling little teeth! Then, her arms, neck, and shape were exquisite. She wore the severest kind of dress, and one that only such beauty could have borne. It was a white silk, with an immense train, of course, and without overskirt—simply caught up in a great puff behind. The waist was made with a small basque, but very low, and with very short sleeves. Round the neck was a white bugle fringe, and there were two or three rows of this fringe in front, graduating to the waist, smaller and smaller, and going round the basque. All the front breadth of the skirt was laid in folds of satin, in groups of three, and on the edge of every third row was the fringe again, graduating wider and wider toward the bottom. In her hair she wore a wreath of white verbenas or (snow-balls) and green leaves. Her sole ornament was a magnificent diamond locket and ear-rings of some curious design, the locket depending from a very fine gold chain, which challenged all observers to notice the faultlessness of her neck. One sly bit of coquetry was visible in two natural flowers, lilies-of-the-valley, with their leaves, which she had stuck in her corsage so that they should rest against her neck and show that they were not whiter than her skin.—You see there were no folds anywhere, as there was no overskirt, but the whole dress hung in long lines and showed the contour of the figure. Nothing but these fringes (which gleamed and waved with every motion) relieved it—not even a bit of black velvet anywhere, for the lace round the neck was drawn through with a white silk thread. There was another lady in the same box whose dress was very beautiful, too, though she herself was not. It was a green silk with green tulle overdress puffed, and with ears of silver wheat scattered over it. The tunic was of silver crape, the bottom cut in scallops and trimmed with silver wheat. A wisp of wheat was knotted round her neck for a necklace, and a perfect sheaf of it in her hair. It was an exquisite dress.
At ten o'clock everybody had arrived—about two thousand people. The orchestra struck up the Polonaise, and the court descended from the box to make the tour of the floor (i. e., only the members of the royal family with their ladies of honour). The Emperor was not very well, so he remained in his box, but the Empress led off with the Duke of Edinburgh, who happened to be here. She was dressed in lavender satin, covered with the most superb white lace. Her hair was done in braids on the top of her head, very high, and upon it was fastened a double coronet of diamonds, stuck on in stars, etc., which flashed like so many small suns. Round her neck depended from a black velvet band, strings of diamonds of great size and magnificence. It really almost made you start when your eye caught them unexpectedly! The Empress is a very elegant-looking woman, and is every inch a queen. She moved with stately step, bowing and bowing graciously from side to side to the crowd which parted and bent before her, and was followed by the Crown Prince and Princess, the Princess Carl, the Princess Friedrich Carl (a beauty) and her daughters, and I don't know who all, with their ladies of honour. When the Countess von Seidlewitz came along, with her fringes waving and gleaming in front of her, she shone out from all the rest, and, in fact, from the whole two thousand guests, like the planet Venus among the other stars.—Stunning!
The orchestra banged away its loudest, and it was quite exciting. The three balconies were crowded with people, and all the boxes. The box of the diplomatic corps was just opposite us, and our gay little Mrs. F. sat in it dressed in white satin. Some of my friends came and stood under my box and tried to get me to come down, but I would not, for I knew I should lose my place if I did, and, indeed, I would not want to dance there unless my dress were something superlative. You see, all the swells sat in their boxes and gazed right down on the dancers, who had a circular place roped off for them. De Rilvas, the Spanish minister, looked so fine, however, with his broad blue ribbon across his breast and his gold cross depending from his neck, that I should have liked very well to have made the tour of the room with him.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A Set of Beethoven Variations. Fannie Warburg. Deppe's
Inventions. His Room. His Afternoon
Coffee. Pyrmont.
BERLIN, April 30, 1874.