"Those who were selected by your majesty: Chazot and Algarotti,
Jordan and Bielfeld."
"Did I select the company?" said the king, thoughtfully; "then I wonder that—" He stopped, and, looking down, turned away silently.
"What causes your majesty's wonder?" said the general.
"I am surprised that I did not ask you to give us Rhine wine this evening," said the king, with a sly smile.
"Rhine wine! why, your majesty has often told me that it was a slow poison, and produced death."
"Yes, that is true, but what will you have? There are many things in this incomprehensible world which are poisonous, and which, for that reason, are the more alluring. This is peculiarly so with women. He does well who avoids them; they bewilder our reason and make our hearts sick, but we do not flee from them. We pursue them, and the poison which they infuse in our veins is sweet; we quaff it rapturously, though death is in the cup."
"In this, however, your majesty is wiser than all other men: you alone have the power to turn away from or withstand them."
"Who knows? perhaps that is sheer cowardice," said the king; he turned away confused, and beat with his fingers upon the window- glass. "I called the Rhine wine poison, because of its strength. I think now that it alone deserves to be called wine—it is the only wine which has bloom." Frederick was again silent, and beat a march upon the window.
The general looked at him anxiously and thoughtfully; suddenly his countenance cleared, and a half-suppressed smile played upon his lips.
"I will allow myself to add a conclusive word to those of my king, that is, a moral to his fable. Your majesty says Rhine wine is the only wine which deserves the name, because it alone has bloom. So I will call that society only society which is graced and adorned by women. Women are the bloom of society. Do you not agree with me, sire?"