Not a sign of her was to be seen, although this other room was likewise
very large, just then not well filled with people.
“Have I been dancing alone?” I gasped, tearing the mask off my burning
face.
“Quite alone! Did you imagine it was with your sweetheart?” was the
mocking, noisy reply.
I was deeply annoyed. “Nonsense!” I cried. “You are all in the
conspiracy! Where has the nun gone? It was no lady at all, it was a man
in disguise!”
They laughed still more, and some whispered behind fans that I must be
drunk.
Strange sensations invaded me. Had a joke been played at my expense? Had
a member of the German legation dressed in female clothes, and in the
height of his whimsical caprice danced with me in that insane fashion?
Were the guests in the secret, and were they amusing themselves--as the
freedom of the carnival permitted--with teasing a foreigner? Yet surely
the mysterious nun must be discoverable. My knees were trembling from a
weakness I was unable to account for, but I collected myself, and
while various thoughts coursed through my brain for a solution of
this carnival prank, I hastened with feverish speed through rooms and
galleries in quest of the nun. But in vain. I espied neither herself,
nor met anyone who had seen her. The lackeys and doorkeepers assured me
in perfect good faith that they had seen no nun of any sort.
“The costume is one of which His Majesty does not approve,” I was
informed in the cloak-room. “It is considered irreverent to appear at
balls here in the spiritual garb of a nun or a monk, and therefore it
is not done. It would certainly have been observed by us had any lady or
gentleman transgressed against the prevailing usage.”
“Then perhaps I may have mistaken for a nun some other mask, who
intended in her gray suit to represent Twilight or Care,” I excused
myself hesitatingly, though I had an accurate eye for dresses, and
could have registered a solemn oath that the mysterious unknown was even
wearing especially authentic claustral attire. No one, however, could
by any effort remember having noticed a costume anything like that
described by me.
“Are there any secret passages to any of the rooms and galleries which
are the scene of tonight’s festivities?” I asked a doorkeeper. He looked
at me in surprise, and answered:
“All ways of communication were opened today because of the crowd of
guests, but for safety’s sake guarded and watched more carefully than
usual. Only the tapestried corridor running the length of the great
colonnade to the royal apartments was left unguarded, since in that
place there is no possibility of improper intrusion.”
A new idea flashed across me. The spot on which I had first set eyes on
my nun was at the entrance to that corridor. Might not a member of the
royal family have elected to make me, as a novice in this foreign court
society, the subject of a merry jest? No doubt the nun was a man in
disguise, and the young princes and dukes were probably capable of
pouncing on the victim and dancing him to death.
My confusion was perhaps very diverting, and the secrecy of the few
spectators of the joke, who were, of course, initiated, was quite
praiseworthy.
They asserted not having seen a nun at all, and laughed at me for having
rushed round the room alone, like a lunatic, Obviously there was no
further room for doubt, this explanation and no other was valid. Why had
I not thought of this before!
So I joined in the hilarity of the others and made the best of my
discomfiture. In any case, the manner in which my partner had dismissed
me betrayed a pair of powerful masculine fists! My shoulders, on which
she had come down so vigorously ached as if they were broken, and I was
still unable to conquer entirely a peculiar sensation of uneasiness.
But while I was pursuing my investigations the clock struck twelve,
the company unmasked, and gaily flocked toward the Supper rooms. I
felt particularly entitled to refreshments, and in the course of my
indulgence in the good things of my selection, my faintness--which was
more astonishing to my robust, muscular young self than any carnival
joke in the world could have been--passed off completely. I was as happy
and lively as before, and enjoyed the remainder of the ball as much as
I had the beginning. I tried to dismiss the episode from my mind. For a
few days I felt a dull pain in my shoulders, which annoyed me at night
also, and disturbed my sleep. The image of the nun haunted me, and the
sombre, penetrating eyes were present to me in my very dreams. This
vexed me, and I mentally abused the royal gentleman in every key who had
pushed his joke rather too far.
A week passed, and the court chamberlain issued invitations for the
third masked ball at the palace. I purchased a sailor’s dress, and on
the evening of the ball tripped up the marble stairs in the best of
spirits. It had in the meanwhile occurred to me that I had perhaps
imbibed too much, and that the prince in nun’s clothing had perhaps
observed my condition, and made me his victim for that reason. But I
rejected that proposition. In the first place, I had not taken much to
drink; certainly two or three glasses of champagne and lemonade were
not worth mentioning when I remembered what quantities of alcohol I had
frequently absorbed in my university days in Germany. I was a brave boon
companion, and capable of consuming a great deal. So how should a few
paltry little glasses make me so unsteady on my feet as to collapse
in dancing a fast gallop? Absurd! I was sure enough of myself, and
sufficiently well brought up in social customs, to know how much one
may drink at a court ball. No--I was convinced that I had not been
intoxicated, but on this occasion I resolved to exercise special
caution, and to be strictly temperate, in the event of the disguised
perpetrator of pranks again attempting to make the German stranger the
butt of his impudence. This time he should meet his match; I would keep
my head clear and my feet steady enough to venture a dance with him. The
constantly suspicious attitude of my mind, to be sure, interfered with
my pleasure very considerably. I was in a too observant mood to float on
the topmost wave of enjoyment, and besides an extraordinary disquietude
had seized upon me, a contraction about the heart that was quite new to
me, such as sensitive people undergo before a storm or in anticipation
of momentous changes of fortune. I wandered about restlessly. Numerous
though the merry masks that flitted around me, that nun’s indescribable
black eyes did not appear, and no effort was made to involve me again as
the hero of another frolic. Time was dragging heavily. I glanced at my
watch, and wished the supper hour might be near. The finger only pointed
to half past eleven, so that I must still possess my soul in patience
for half an hour. It was a lovely, mild, moonlight night; the doors to
the tapestried passage and the colonnade had been thrown open, and I
concluded to take a breath of the fragrant air and a rapid view of the
illuminated town in its festive brilliancy of a carnival night.
A female pierrot dances past me with Don Juan, and, with a laugh,
throws a handful of confetti in my face. I retaliate--a few phrases are
exchanged--I look after her for a moment--and then turn to the entrance
of the corridor, to get out into the colonnade.