"No," said Gabriel; "we came by way of Orvieto."
"Lucky for you!" exclaimed the landlord.
"What is the name of the gentleman you refer to?" asked the princess, in a tone that betrayed the keenness of her interest.
"It's a queer name," answered the landlord, "and I can't remember it. But I'll find it for you in my letters of advice and send it up to your room."
Blanka had hardly laid aside her wraps when a waiter knocked at her door and presented a card on a silver salver. "Conte Benjamino de Vajdar" was the name she read in the landlord's handwriting.
On the following morning, Blanka sent for the hotel-keeper and desired him to procure for herself and her two companions admission tickets to all the sacred ceremonies of the coming week. The worthy man fairly gasped at the coolness of this request. Tickets to the Sistine Chapel, to the Tenebræ, to the Benediction, and to the Glorification—and for three persons? Why, money couldn't buy them at that late hour, he declared. Admission tickets to paradise would be more easily obtainable. At the very utmost, places might still be procured on some balcony overlooking the Piazza di San Pietro, but only at extremely high prices. Yet the view from such a position would be a fine one; and mine host, without waiting to listen to any objections, hastened away to secure tickets, if they were still to be had.
The princess made her lament to Gabriel Zimandy over her poor success in obtaining what she so ardently desired, and that gentleman sought to console her with the assurance that it was highly venturesome for ladies to trust themselves in the crowd that always attended the church ceremonies of Holy Week, and that she could read all about them much more comfortably in the newspapers. Blanka, however, took so much to heart the disappointment of her pious wishes, and came so near the point of tear-letting, that the advocate felt obliged to sally forth in person to see what he could do to console her. In less than an hour he was back again, breathless and exultant. He ran up-stairs with the agility of a much younger and less corpulent man, and hastened to the princess's room, regardless of the fact that she was at the moment under her hair-dresser's hands.
"Victory!" he cried, panting for breath. "The impossible is achieved, and here are tickets for all three of us—to everything—to the Tenebræ, the washing of feet, the Last Supper, the Resurrection, the relics, the Benediction—"
"But how did you get them?" interrupted the ladies, overcome with curiosity. Madam Dormandy had come hurrying out of her room at the first sound of his voice, and she and the princess now proceeded to pelt their victorious envoy with a volley of questions.