Evening was approaching, when weary of the airs of a common carp, he drew in, at length, his tackle.
Like a shawl of turquoise silk the lake seemed to vie, in serenity and radiance, with the bluest day in June, and it was no surprise, on descending presently for a restricted ramble—(the island, in all, amounted to scarcely one acre)—to descry the invaluable Peter enjoying a pleasant swim.
When not boating or reading or feeding his swans, to watch Peter’s fancy-diving off the terrace end, was perhaps the favourite pastime of the veteran viveur: to behold the lad trip along the riven breakwater, as naked as a statue, shoot out his arms and spring, the Flying-head-leap or the Backsadilla, was a beautiful sight, looking up now and again—but more often now—from a volume of old Greek verse; while to hear him warbling in the water with his clear alto voice—of Kyries and Anthems he knew no end—would often stir the old man to the point of tears. Frequently the swans themselves would paddle up to listen, expressing by the charmed or rapturous motions of their necks (recalling to the exile the ecstasies of certain musical, or “artistic” dames at Concert-halls, or the Opera House, long ago) their mute appreciation, their touched delight....
“Old goody Two-shoes never came, sir,” Peter archly lisped, admiring his adventurous shadow upon the breakwater wall.
“How is that?”
“Becalmed, sir,” Peter answered, culling languidly a small, nodding rose, that was clinging to the wall:
“O becalmed is my soul
I rejoice in the Lord!”
At one extremity of the garden stood the Observatory, and after duly appraising various of Peter’s neatest feats, the Count strolled away towards it. But before he could reach the Observatory, he had first to pass his swans.
They lived, with an ancient water-wheel, beneath a cupola of sun-glazed tiles, sheltered, partially, from the lake by a hedge of towering red geraniums, and the Count seldom wearied of watching these strangely gorgeous creatures as they sailed out and in through the sanguine-hued flowers. A few, with their heads sunk back beneath their wings, had retired for the night already; nevertheless, the Count paused to shake a finger at one somnolent bird, in disfavour for pecking Peter: “Jealous, doubtless of the lad’s grace,” he mused, fumbling with the key of the Observatory door.
The unrivalled instrument that the Observatory contained, whose intricate lenses were capable of drawing even the remote Summer-Palace to within an appreciable range, was, like most instruments of merit, sensitive to the manner of its manipulation; and fearing lest the inexpert tampering of a homesick housekeeper (her native village was visible in clear weather, with the aid of a glass) should break or injure the delicate lenses, the Count kept the Observatory usually under key.