I liked to have the Dedopali tell me about her cousin. He was the son of the last King of Georgia; properly bore the name Bagration, just as the Russian emperors are Romanofs—he was a “Bagratide.” This designation sounded to me particularly heroic and classic. He had a palace in Tiflis and an ancient royal castle in the mountains. He lived much in Europe, but frequently went back to his home in the Caucasus, where he was still treated by the population as a king. In temperament he was melancholy rather than cheerful, the probable cause being his not altogether robust health—his yellowish complexion indicated a diseased liver. To cure such ailments he alternately drank of the waters of Homburg, Karlsbad, or Vichy.
“He would cure his ailments better,” added the princess, “if he would take a young wife who would cheer him up and make him right happy, a sweet young wife like you, ma petite Contessina—Just try and see if you can’t turn his head a little; it has long been the wish of my heart to have him married.”
Such advice turned my head a little. I really found this exotic sprig of royalty, this dark Bagratide, who was at the same time a thorough homme du monde, in the highest degree interesting. There is yet a step from being interested to being in love, but not a very long one. The slightest occasion, and this step is taken. This is the way it happened with me (I made use of this episode many years later in my novel Trente-et-quarante):
One day I had again been invited to dinner at the Villa Weckerlin. Those who sat next me at table were an Englishman—Lord Hillsborough—and Heraclius. After dinner the company repaired to the salon; the mistress of the house requested me to play something for them. Without being urged, I sat down at the grand piano and played with bravura a Chopin valse. Heraclius stood near me.
“You are an artist,” he said when I had finished.
It was now time to break up. The princess’s guests had also taken a box at the opera for that evening, and it had been agreed that we should go to the opera together.
I followed the princess into her dressing-room to rearrange, my hair a little. The locks to be curled, and the faded roses to be replaced with fresh ones. While Masha, the maid, was doing this work, I looked at my own picture set in the silver frame of the toilet mirror. How advantageously this thick polished glass showed the image: or was it the effect of the champagne that my cheeks glowed so vividly, as if they had been rouged? I took up the oval hand mirror; it showed the same dazzling color; and by means of the double reflection I could now also see the effect of the spray of roses drooping between the dark locks at the back of my neck.
The princess stood near the toilet table.
“Take a little poudre de riz, my love,” she said, and lifted the silver cover of a round glass jar. I pressed the puff into the fragrant powder and dabbed it against my face and neck; how cooling it was, how refreshing to the hot cheeks! And then, after the visible traces of rice flour had been wiped off with the soft rabbit’s foot, the too deep red in the cheeks had been changed to a tender rose, the lips glowed the more vividly, and the eyes sparkled darker than before.
To complete my toilet the princess gave me a sandalwood fan with steel spangles, and now we were ready.