The Young Duke by Benjamin Disraeli (read book .TXT) 📖

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The guests are seated; but after a few minutes the servants withdraw. Small tables of ebony and silver, and dumb waiters of ivory and gold, conveniently stored, are at hand, and Spiridion never leaves the room. The repast was refined, exquisite, various. It was one of those meetings where all eat. When a few persons, easy and unconstrained, unencumbered with cares, and of dispositions addicted to enjoyment, get together at past midnight, it is extraordinary what an appetite they evince. Singers also are proverbially prone to gourmandise; and though the Bird of Paradise unfortunately possessed the smallest mouth in all Singingland, it is astonishing how she pecked! But they talked as well as feasted, and were really gay.

'Prince,' said the Duke, 'I hope Madame de Harestein approves of your trip to England?'

The Prince only smiled, for he was of a silent disposition, and therefore wonderfully well suited his travelling companion.

'Poor Madame de Harestein!' exclaimed Count Frill. 'What despair she was in, when you left Vienna, my dear Duke. I did what I could to amuse her. I used to take my guitar, and sing to her morning and night, but without effect. She certainly would have died of a broken heart, if it had not been for the dancing-dogs.'

'Did they bite her?' asked a lady who affected the wit of Lord Squib, 'and so inoculate her with gaiety.'

'Everybody was mad about the dancing-dogs. They came from Peru, and danced the mazurka in green jackets with a _jabot_. Oh! what a _jabot!_'

'I dislike animals excessively,' remarked another lady, who was as refined as Mr. Annesley, her model.

'Dislike the dancing-dogs!' said Count Frill. 'Ah! my good lady, you would have been enchanted. Even the Kaiser fed them with pistachio nuts. Oh! so pretty! Delicate leetle things, soft shining little legs, and pretty little faces! so sensible, and with such _jabots!_'

'I assure you they were excessively amusing,' said the Prince, in a soft, confidential undertone to his neighbour, Mrs. Montfort, who was as dignified as she was beautiful, and who, admiring his silence, which she took for state, smiled and bowed with fascinating condescension.

'And what else has happened very remarkable, Count, since I left you?' asked Lord Darrell.

'Nothing, nothing, my dear Darrell. This _betise_ of a war has made us all serious. If old Clamstandt had not married that gipsy, little Dugiria, I really think I should have taken a turn to Belgrade.'

'You should not eat so much, Poppet!' drawled Charles Annesley to a Spanish danseuse, tall, dusky and lithe, glancing like a lynx and graceful as a jennet. She was very silent, but no doubt indicated the possession of Cervantic humour by the sly calmness with which she exhausted her own waiter, and pillaged her neighbours.

'Why not?' said a little French actress, highly finished like a miniature, who scarcely ate anything, but drank champagne and chatted with equal rapidity and composure, and who was always ready to fight anybody's battle, provided she could get an opportunity to talk. 'Why not, Mr. Annesley? You never will let anybody eat. I never eat myself, because every night, having to talk so much, I am dry, dry, dry; so I drink, drink, drink. It is an extraordinary thing that there is no language which makes you so thirsty as French.'

'What can be the reason?' asked a sister of Mrs. Montfort, a tall fair girl, who looked sentimental, but was only silly.

'Because there is so much salt in it,' said Lord Squib.

'Delia,' drawled Mr. Annesley, 'you look very pretty to-night!'

'I am charmed to charm you, Mr. Annesley. Shall I tell you what Lord Bon Mot said of you?'

'No, _ma mignonne!_ I never wish to hear my own good things.'

'Spoiled, you should add,' said the fair rival of Lord Squib, 'if Bon Mot be in the case.'

'Lord Bon Mot is a most gentlemanlike man,' said Delia, indignant at an admirer being attacked. 'He always wants to be amusing. Whenever he dines out, he comes and sits with me for half an hour to catch the air of the Parisian badinage.'

'And you tell him a variety of little things?' asked Lord Squib, insidiously drawing out the secret tactics of Bon Mot.

'_Beaucoup, beaucoup_,' said Delia, extending two little white hands sparkling with gems. 'If he come in ever so, how do you call it? heavy, not that: in the domps. Ah! it is that. If ever he come in the domps, he goes out always like a _soufflee_.'

'As empty, I have no doubt,' said the witty lady.

'And as sweet, I have no doubt,' said Lord Squib; 'for Delcroix complains sadly of your excesses, Delia.'

'Mr. Delcroix complain of me! That, indeed, is too bad. Just because I recommend Montmorency de Versailles to him for an excellent customer, ever since he abuses me, merely because Montmorency has forgot, in the hurry of going off, to pay his little account.'

'But he says you have got all the things,' said Lord Squib, whose great amusement was to put Delia in a passion.

'What of that?' screamed the little lady. 'Montmorency gave them me.'

'Don't make such a noise,' said the Bird of Paradise. 'I never can eat when there is a noise. Duke,' continued she in a fretful tone, 'they make such a noise!'

'Annesley, keep Squib quiet.'

'Delia, leave that young man alone. If Isidora would talk a little more, and you eat a little more, I think you would be the most agreeable little ladies I know. Poppet! put those bonbons in your pocket. You should never eat sugarplums in company.'

Thus, talking agreeable nonsense, tasting agreeable dishes, and sipping agreeable wines, an hour ran on. Sweetest music from an unseen source ever and anon sounded, and Spiridion swung a censer full of perfumes round the chamber. At length the Duke requested Count Frill to give them a song. The Bird of Paradise would never sing for pleasure, only for fame and a slight cheque. The Count begged to decline, and at the same time asked for a guitar. The Signora sent for hers; and his Excellency, preluding with a beautiful simper, gave them some slight thing to this effect.


I.

Charming Bignetta! charming Bignetta!
What a gay little girl is charming Bignetta!
She dances, she prattles,
She rides and she rattles;
But she always is charming, that charming Bignetta!

II

Charming Bignetta! charming Bignetta!
What a wild little witch is charming Bignetta!
When she smiles, I'm all madness;
When she frowns, I'm all sadness;
But she always is smiling, that charming Bignetta!

III.

Charming Bignetta! charming Bignetta!
What a wicked young rogue is charming Bignetta!
She laughs at my shyness,
And flirts with his Highness;
Yet still she is charming, that charming Bignetta!

IV.

Charming Bignetta! charming Bignetta!
What a dear little girl is charming Bignetta!
'Think me only a sister,'
Said she trembling: I kissed her.
What a charming young sister is charming Bignetta!


To choicer music chimed his gay guitar 'In Este's Halls,' yet still his song served its purpose, for it raised a smile.

'I wrote that for Madame Sapiepha, at the Congress of Verona,' said Count Frill. 'It has been thought amusing.'

'Madame Sapiepha!' exclaimed the Bird of Paradise. 'What! that pretty little woman, who has such pretty caps?'

'The same! Ah! what caps! what taste!'

'You like caps, then?' asked the Bird of Paradise, with a sparkling eye.

'Oh! if there be anything more than another that I know most, it is the cap. Here,' said he, rather oddly unbuttoning his waistcoat, 'you see what lace I have got.'

'Ah me! what lace!' exclaimed the Bird, in rapture. 'Duke, look at his lace. Come here, sit next to me. Let me look at that lace.' She examined it with great attention, then turned up her beautiful eyes with a fascinating smile. '_Ah! c'est jolie, n'est-ce pas?_ But you like caps. I tell you what, you shall see my caps. Spiridion, go, _mon cher_, and tell Ma'amselle to bring my caps, all my caps, one of each set.'

In due time entered the Swiss, with the caps, all the caps, one of each set. As she handed them in turn to her mistress, the Bird chirped a panegyric upon each.

'That is pretty, is it not, and this also? but this is my favourite. What do you think of this border? _c'est belle cette garniture? et ce jabot, c'est tres-seduisant, n'est-ce pas? Mais voici_, the cap of Princess Lichtenstein. _C'est superb, c'est mon favori_. But I also love very much this of the Duchess de Berri. She gave me the pattern herself. And, after, all, this _cornette a petite sante_ of Lady Blaze is a dear little thing; then, again, this _coiffe a dentelle_ of Lady Macaroni is quite a pet.'

'Pass them down,' said Lord Squib; 'we want to look at them.' Accordingly they were passed down. Lord Squib put one on.

'Do I look superb, sentimental, or only pretty?' asked his Lordship. The example was contagious, and most of the caps were appropriated. No one laughed more than their mistress, who, not having the slightest idea of the value of money, would have given them all away on the spot; not from any good-natured feeling, but from the remembrance that tomorrow she might amuse half an hour in buying others.

Whilst some were stealing, and she remonstrating, the Duke clapped his hands like a caliph. The curtain at the end of the apartment was immediately withdrawn, and the ball-room stood revealed.

It was the same size as the banqueting-hall. Its walls exhibited a long perspective of golden pilasters, the frequent piers of which were of looking-glass, save where, occasionally, a picture had been, as it were, inlaid in its rich frame. Here was the Titian Venus of the Tribune, deliciously copied by a French artist: there, the Roman Fornarina, with her delicate grace, beamed like the personification of Raf-faelle's genius. Here, Zuleikha, living in the light and shade of that magician Guercino, in vain summoned the passions of the blooming Hebrew: and there, Cleopatra, preparing for her last immortal hour, proved by what we saw that Guido had been a lover.

The ceiling of this apartment was richly painted, and richly gilt: from it were suspended three lustres by golden cords, which threw a softened light upon the floor of polished and curiously inlaid woods. At the end of the apartment was an orchestra.

Round the room waltzed the elegant revellers. Softly and slowly, led by their host, they glided along like spirits of air; but each time that the Duke passed the musicians, the music became livelier, and the motion more brisk, till at length you might have mistaken them for a college of spinning dervishes. One by one, an exhausted couple retreated from the lists. Some threw themselves on a sofa, some monopolised an easy chair; but in twenty minutes the whirl had ceased. At length Peacock Piggott gave a groan, which denoted returning energy, and raised a stretching leg in air, bringing up, though most unwittingly, upon his foot, one of the Bird's sublime and beautiful caps.

'Halloa! Piggott, armed _cap-au-pied_, I see,' said Lord Squib. This joke was a signal for general resuscitation.

The Alhambra formed a quadrangle: all the chambers were