“I am one Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, a name which has yet to declare itself, Sir Count, in this part of our peninsula, but which has been held in high esteem in our northern province of Asturias for many hundreds of years.”
“We are choicely met, Don Miguel, and if you will do me the signal honour of accompanying me to supper, I shall be the happiest man in the world.”
Upon an invitation of such courtesy you will readily suppose, good reader, it was not for me to refuse. For his musical speech, the delicate breeding of his air, the distinction of his dress, sombre and chaste, yet handsome and well fitting, all proclaimed his quality. His face looked melancholy, yet now and again a tender and sweet smile would suffuse it, and change it altogether as if by the magic of poetry.
The companion I had found in this strange and providential fashion would not hear of my parting with Babieca, although within five minutes of our acquaintance I must have revealed to him my bitter poverty, for he was such a one to whom the proudest bosom unfolds its secrets. There was some kind of enchantment in his face, and I took no shame from telling him that I was in the world alone, and that fortune had rebuffed me.
“Ah, Fortune, Fortune!” said he. “She is the Proud Princess whom we woo all our days, and who kills us with melancholy because she will have none of us. Did you ever meet one, my dear Don Miguel, upon whom she had smiled?”
“No, Sir Count,” said I, “I have yet to have that happiness. She did not smile upon my father, and she hath not smiled upon me.”
“The proud jade is a chimera,” said the Count of Nullepart. “We seek her all our days, and when at last we have come up with her, and we press her to our bosom—lo! she is not, and we find ourselves embracing the air. But come, my dear Don Miguel, we will eat in our inn, and leave philosophy until after supper.”
I know not, reader, what providence it was that brought the Count of Nullepart and myself together, but as I led Babieca to this inn at his behest, he linked his arm through mine, and he became my brother. The tender melancholy of his smile, the music of his speech, lulled my mind not only with the superiority of his condition, but also with the nobility of his intelligence. Strangely his course was pointed to that fonda at which I had eaten my breakfast in the doubtful company of Sir Richard Pendragon early that day. Perhaps, however, this was not so remarkable, because the hostelry of “The Three Feathers” was the largest and fairest inn in the whole of the city.
It was with very different feelings that I sat at table in the company of this true gentleman, to those with which I had waited on the good pleasure of one whose gentility depended on his name. The fare of which we partook had been prepared with delicacy; the innkeeper served us in person with a deference which had its root in a desire to please my companion; the wine was of the first quality and was chosen well; and the discourse that flowed from the lips of the Count of Nullepart was the most charming of all—that of one who knows the world and is minded to forget it.
“There are no adventures outside of the soul,” he said, toying with his cup of wine with white, slender, and tapering hands. “What are these poor five wits of ours in comparison with the infinite senses of the inner nature? We lock our teeth, yet taste nothing; we open our eyes, yet see nothing; we incline our ears, yet hear nothing; we excite our nostrils, yet smell no perfume; we prick ourselves with a dagger, yet there is nothing we can feel. It is the same with this Princess Fortune that we talk about: we seek her forever, yet find her not. There is no princess, my friend, there is no princess.”