"A MERRY MASQUE"
It was a beautiful sight, one calculated to inspire feelings of mirth and gaiety, even in a heart ill at ease with itself. Such a ball-room as the Redouten-Saal is perhaps hardly to be seen elsewhere in Europe. Such music I will venture to say can only be heard in Vienna, where the whole population, from the highest to the lowest, seem to live only that they may dance. Everybody knows the effect of brilliant light on the animal spirits; the walls of these magnificent rooms are of a pale fawn colour, almost approaching to white--the very shade that best refracts and enhances the effect of hundreds of wax candles, shedding their soft radiance on the votaries of pleasure below. No wonder people are in good spirits; no wonder they throng the spacious halls, or parade the long galleries above, and looking down from their elevated position, pass many a pointed jest and humorous sally on the varied scene that crowds the floor below. No wonder they frequent the refreshment-rooms that skirt these galleries, and flirt and talk nonsense, and quiz each other with the cumbrous vivacity of the Saxon race. When I entered from the quiet street I was dazzled by the glare, and almost stupefied by the hum of many voices, and the pealing notes of one of those waltzes which Strauss seems to have composed expressly to remind the fallen children of Adam of their lost Paradise. From a boy music has made me melancholy--the sweeter the sadder; and although it is a morbid unmanly feeling, which I have striven hard to overcome, it has always conquered me, it will always conquer me to the last. I felt bitterly out of place amongst these pleasure-worshippers. What had I to do here, where all were merry and full of enjoyment? My very dress was out of keeping with the scene, for I was one of a very small minority in civil attire. Gorgeous uniforms, white, blue, and green, glittered all over the ball-room; for in Austria no officer nowadays ever appears out of uniform; and as an army of six hundred thousand men is officered almost exclusively from the aristocracy, the fair ball-goers of Vienna find no lack of partners in gaudy and warlike attire. The ladies were all masked; not so their respective cavaliers, it being part of the amusement of these balls that the gentler sex alone should appear incognito, and so torment their natural prey at more than their usual advantage; thus many a poisoned dart is planted, many a thrust driven securely home, without a chance of a parry or fear of a return. Though Pity is represented in a female garb, it seems to me that woman, when she does strike, strikes harder, straighter, swifter, more unsparingly than man. Perhaps she suffers as much as she inflicts, and this makes her ruthless and reckless--who knows? if so, she would rather die than acknowledge it. These are not thoughts for a ball, and yet they crowded on me more and more as I stood under the musicians' gallery, gazing vacantly at the throng.
Victor and his party had not yet arrived. I was sure to distinguish them by Ropsley's scarlet uniform, and I was also sure that in such an assemblage of military connoisseurs the costume of Queen Victoria's body-guard would attract observation and remark that could not pass unnoticed even by so preoccupied a spectator as myself. Besides, I knew the colour of Valèrie's dress; it was to be pink, and of some fabric, beautiful exceedingly, of which I had forgotten the name as soon as told. I was consequently sure of finding them whenever I wished, so I stood quietly in my corner, and watched the crowd go by, without caring to mingle in the stream or partake of the amusements every one else seemed to find so delightful. How poor and vapid sounded the conversation of the passers-by; how strained the efforts at wit; how forced and unnatural the attempts at mystification! The Germans are too like ourselves to sustain for any length of time the artificial pace of badinage and repartee. It is not the genius of the nation, and they soon come to a humble jog-trot of old trite jokes, or, worse still, break down completely, and stop once for all. The only man that seemed in his element was a French attaché, and he indeed entered into the spirit of the thing with a zest and enthusiasm of truly Parisian origin. Surrounded by masks, he kept up a fire of witticism, which never failed or diminished for an instant; like the juggler who plays with half-a-dozen balls, now one, now another, now all up in air at once. The Frenchman seemed to ask no respite, to shrink from no emergency; he was little, he was ugly, he was not even gentleman-like, but he was "the right man in the right place," and the ladies were enchanted with him accordingly. Surrounded by his admirers, he was at a sufficient distance for me to watch his proceedings without the risk of appearing impertinent, and so I looked on, half amused at his readiness, half disgusted with his flippancy, till I found my attention wandering once more to my own unprofitable and discontented thoughts.
"Mouton gui rêve," said a voice at my elbow, so close that it made me start.
I turned rapidly round, and saw a lady standing so near that her dress touched mine, masked, of course, and thoroughly disguised in figure and appearance. Had it not been for the handsome arm and the camellia she held to her lips, I should not have recognised her as the lady I had spoken to at the door of the Opera, and who had appointed to meet me at this very spot--a rendezvous which, truth to tell, I had nearly forgotten.
"Mouton gui rêve," she repeated, and added, in the same language, "Your dreams must be very pleasant if they can thus abstract you from all earthly considerations, even music and dancing, and your duty towards the fair sex."
"Now what can this woman want with me? I wish she would let me alone," was my inward thought: but my outward expression thereof was couched in more polite language.
"Dreaming! of course I was dreaming--and of Madame; so bright a vision, that I could hardly hope ever to see it realised. I place myself at Madame's feet as the humblest of her slaves."
She laughed in my face. "Do not attempt compliments," she said, "it is not your métier. The only thing I like about you English is your frankness and straight-forward character. Take me upstairs. I want to speak seriously to you. Don't look so preoccupied."
At this instant I recognised Ropsley's scarlet uniform showing to great advantage on his tall person in the distance; I could not help glancing towards the part of the room in which I knew the pink dress was to be found, for the pink dress would of course have entered with Ropsley, and where the pink dress was there would be another, whom, after to-night, I had resolved never, never to see again.