Thereupon I endeavoured to get my two interlocutors out of the crowd, in order to be more free in the interview, which I felt was to decide the whole of my life, but Grand-Chamberlain Narischkine came up to us, recognised the ladies, took their arms and led them away. I had no longer any doubt. I had met once more the angel of a dream the realisation of which would not occur on earth.
I remained rooted to the spot, then rushed after the dominos like a madman. I saw nothing, I heard nothing except the magic words that had gone to the core of my heart. My pursuit was in vain, the crowd had parted us for evermore.
In one of the quadrangular rooms I came upon the Prince Cariati talking very animatedly to a lady disguised as a gipsy, who immediately revealed her incognita. It was the Comtesse Zamoyska, our neighbour on the Jaeger Zeill.
‘I wish you to join our plot,’ she said; ‘it ‘s a complicated piece of mystification, the sequel to an intrigue begun at one of these balls, which has lasted now for several weeks. The personage I wish to mystify is worthy of my attempt.’ Without knowing or caring much what I did, I fell in with the wish of the comtesse, who left us, laughing.
I was getting weary of it all, when I noticed my friend M. Achille Rouen occupying a rout seat all by himself, and apparently as bored as I was. I asked him if he had seen the dominos of whom I was in search. ‘If you mean the two who were with Narischkine,’ he replied, giving me an exact description of them, ‘they left the ball a quarter of an hour ago.’
From that moment the charm of the evening seemed to have vanished, as far as I was concerned. We began chatting about the Congress and the current news, and as a matter of course the name of M. de Talleyrand cropped up. No other name was so often mentioned in people’s comments on the difficult and critical questions of the moment. Achille Rouen, who never missed a day without seeing him, was sincerely attached to him.
‘It’s impossible to know M. de Talleyrand thoroughly without liking him,’ he said. ‘All those who have come in close contact with him judge him as I do. He is an inexplicable, I might say indefinable, amalgam of simplicity and lofty thoughts, of grace and logic, of critical faculty and courteous tolerance. In one’s intercourse with him, one learns almost unconsciously the history and politics of all times, and thousands of stories in connection with every Court; his company is practically a guide through an enormous gallery, where events are as instructively depicted as personages.’
‘And in spite of this, my dear Achille, how people have rent him to pieces! Is mediocrity always to exact such a heavy toll from talent for the latter’s success? For, if such be the case, the only happy people are those whose obscurity does not breed envy in others.’
‘History will reward M. de Talleyrand for the evil his contemporaries have said of him. When, in the course of a long and difficult career, a statesman has preserved a great number of faithful friends, and counts but few enemies, one feels bound to credit him with having been wise and moderate, honourable and thoroughly able. In the prince’s case, the heart is even better than the ability. Not long ago, M. de R—— came to borrow twenty thousand francs of him. M. de Talleyrand lent them. A month later the news came that in consequence of business reverses, M. de R—— had blown his brains out. “I am glad I did not refuse him the money,” exclaimed M. de Talleyrand, and one sentence like this suffices to paint the man.
‘But,’ Rouen went on, ‘what is the circumstance to which he lately referred during a conversation, and which he said might have considerably influenced your life?’