He spoke to me, bidding we welcome, and although he spoke Spanish, and I had never learned the language, I understood it perfectly and conversed in it as easily as in my mother tongue.
“You are a welcome guest, dear friend,” said the duke, and graciously pressed my band. “You have been introduced to me as an excellent and wealthy lord. Wealth is always well received; wealth is the key to every thing; wealth captivates all hearts; permit me to present you to my wife and daughter.”
Oh, what joy and rapture! The moment had arrived in which I should behold the fairest of the fair—the most beautiful woman now dwelling upon the earth! I saw her! Words cannot describe her, thought cannot picture her, only the imagination may venture to conceive of her.
Her voice was song—her glance a revelation of heaven.
The young rose had touched her cheeks with its soft tint; the enamel of the lily was upon her brow; her charming lips vied with crimson coral; her soft, blond hair waved in natural curls around her lovely face, and a Persian poet would have compared her graceful form to the gazelle. Beside the heavenly Angelica sat her mother, who would still have been called handsome, although there was about her an air of pride and haughtiness, which was wholly wanting in the daughter. I felt that, by the possession of the purse and wishing cap, I had become an entirely different man. How often I had trembled and been agitated as I stood in the antechamber of some great man, waiting to present my catalogue of wines for the firm of Steinlein & Son. What trouble I had taken to learn by heart the conditions of sale, that I might not stutter and stammer when they were asked for. And now I stood like a cool, self-possessed man of the world before a Brazilian duchess and her beautiful daughter, while the duke, her father, held my hand, which did not tremble in the least, and said, laying a significant stress upon his words, “The Marquis della Mostarda, the stranger whom the imperial secretary has so kindly introduced to us. He is just from Europe, and can tell you of the latest fashions. He is a man of great merit, and, as I well know, all means will be tried to induce him to take up his residence here in the capital.”
The stout nobleman moved on to make room for me by the ladies. The duchess beckoned me toward her, and her proud bearing gave way to a gracious condescension. She cast upon me a smiling glance, the tender expression of which I recognised at once from the descriptions in the best romances of the day. Then, pointing to her daughter, she observed, “The child there will listen only too willingly to stories of strange lands. She is wonderfully interested in geography. Talk with her—tell her where the most costly shawls are made, of Brabant laces, and Parisian bijouterie; tell her of your Italian home, of fire-breathing Vesuvius, of the Colosseum at Rome and the Lagune in Venice.”
The duchess turned from me to a pale young man, simply dressed, whose eyes had been fixed upon me whilst I stood by the lady with a singular, I might almost say sinister expression. His features were finely cut, but it could not escape me, with my knowledge of mankind, that there played about the corners of the mouth a contemptuous, scornful expression; just such as Hoffman always gives to his diabolical characters. It seemed to me that, looking through me, he saw the wishing-cap in my bosom, and the purse in my vest pocket. With an uncomfortable sensation I turned from him to the angel-face of the Princess Angelica. Her musical tones broke upon the ear like the singing in Schelble’s Cecilia-chorus. A whole opera by Rossini seemed to fill my senses as I listened to her; trills and roulades, crescendo and decrescendo, adagio and allegro. Now it sounded mournfully as in the cavatina from “Tancredi,” now, it exulted like the song of victory in the “Siege of Corinth.” O thou heavenly Angelica, thou wast at once the music and the director, and if I looked at thee, I seemed to see the Venus de Medici, dressed in tulle, embroidered with gold, sleeves à la Gigot, brilliants in her ears and upon her fingers, and rubies around her neck. Her remarks were acute and witty, while, at the same time, she raised her forget-me-not eyes so beseechingly to my face, that I imagined I read in them Goethe’s “Sorrows of Werther” and the loves of Herrman and Dorothea. She was curious about literature and the stage. Then I was in my element. I told her of Madame Sontag and Paganini; how the former, before her marriage, had sung variations for the violin, and the latter had played the charming song “cara mamena.” I told her of the public favorites, and hummed several airs for her from “Der Weiner in Berlin.” All this with an ease and grace which stamped the Marquis della Mostarda as a most accomplished cavalier. Then I spoke of the great lights in modern poetry—of Heine and Count Plateu Hallermande—how the former lavished the flowers of his fancy in lamentations over an unhappy love, and the latter poured himself forth in metrical praise of Friendship. She listened attentively; then suddenly she sighed deeply, so deeply that I was alarmed, and asked her in my confusion whether, in speaking of these renowned poets, I had said any thing unpleasant to her?
“No, no!” said she, mournfully. “I have had a German governante; I understand German, and read the German poets. Both poets of whom you speak are dear to me, particularly the touching Heine. But there are other glorious things in Germany beside art and poetry. Do you not love Nüremburg gingerbread, my lord marquis? As you have lived so long in Germany, you cannot be a stranger to this delicious production.”
“Alas! it is now two years since my father received a little package of it, and since that time all the delicacies of this country have lost their charm for me. In vain do I breathe this delightful atmosphere, its fragrance is nothing to that of this rich manufacture from Germany.”
The princess was silent; she appeared to sink into a profound melancholy. The duchess leaned over to us, and said, in a confidential, motherly tone, “What is the matter, children? You seem troubled, my lord marquis; and, Angelica, your eyes are swimming with tears.”