Suddenly the prince turned to her. "I feel the vanity of an author," said he, "and beg permission to inquire if you have no curiosity to hear the poem which I had the honor of sending you to-day by Madame Brandt?"
"Indeed I have, my husband," exclaimed the princess, with vivacity. "I long to become acquainted with its contents."
"Then permit me to satisfy this longing," said the prince, holding out his hand for the poem. The princess hesitated, but when she looked up and their eyes met, his glance was so cold and imperious, that she felt as if an icy hand were at her heart. She drew the poem from her bosom and handed it silently to her husband.
"Now, my little maid of honor, von Schwerin," said the prince royal, smiling, "this sagacious, highly respectable, and worthy company shall judge between you and me, and decide whether this paper is a letter from her dear mother, as this modest and retiring child asserts, or a poem, written by a certain prince, who is sometimes induced by his imaginative fancy to make indifferent verses. Listen, therefore, ladies and gentlemen, and judge between us. But that no one may imagine that I am reading any thing else, and substituting the tender thoughts of a lover for the fond words of motherly affection, Madame Morien shall look at the paper I am reading, and bear witness to my truth."
He read off the first verses as they were written, and then improvising, recited a witty and humorous poem, in which he did homage to his wife's charms. His poem was greeted with rapturous applause. While he was reciting the improvised verses, Madame Morien had time to read the poem. When she came to the verses which contained a passionate declaration of love, and in which the prince half-humbly, half-imperiously, solicited a rendezvous, her breast heaved and her heart beat high with delight. After the prince had finished he turned to his wife with a smile, and asked if the poem had pleased her.
"So much so," said she, "that I pray you to return it. I should like to preserve it as a reminiscence of this hour."
"Preserve it? By no means! A poem is like a flower. It is a thing of the present, and is beautiful only when fresh. The moment gave it, and the moment shall take it. We will sacrifice to the gods, what we owe to the gods."
Having thus spoken, the prince tore the paper into small pieces, which he placed in the palm of his hand.
"Go ye in all directions and teach unto all people that nothing is immortal, not even the poem of a prince," said he, and blowing the particles of paper, he sent them fluttering through the air like snowflakes. The ladies and gentlemen amused themselves with blowing the pieces from place to place. Each one made a little bellows of his mouth, and endeavored to give some strip of paper a particular direction or aim—to blow it on to some fair one's white shoulders or into some gentleman's eye or laughing mouth.
This caused a great deal of merriment. The princess was still sad and silent. Now and then a scrap fell before her; these she blew no further, but mechanically collected and gazed at them in a listless and mournful manner. Suddenly she started and colored violently. On one of these strips of paper she had read two words which made her heart tremble with anger and pain. These Words were, "Bewitching Leontine!"