stood
for three hours in the reception-room, amid flowers and draperies,
dressed in scarlet and gold, with the majestic bearing peculiar to
persons who exert some little authority, and with my calves exposed for
the first time in my life, and sent the name of each guest like the
report of a cannon into the long line of five salons, a resplendent
footman saluting each time with the _bing_ of his halberd on the floor.

How many interesting observations I was able to make that evening, what
jocose sallies, what quips, all in most excellent taste, were tossed
back and forth by the servants, concerning the people of fashion who
passed! I should never have heard anything so amusing with the
vine-dressers of Montbars. I ought to say that the worthy M. Barreau
caused us all to be served with a hearty, well-irrigated lunch in his
office, which was filled to the ceiling with iced drinks and
refreshments, thereby putting every one of us in an excellent humor,
which was maintained throughout the evening by glasses of punch and
champagne whisked from the salvers as they passed.

The masters, however, were not so contented as we were. When I reached
my post, at nine o'clock, I was struck by the anxious, nervous face of
the Nabob, whom I spied walking with M. de Gery through the
brilliantly-lighted, empty salons, talking earnestly and gesticulating
wildly.

"I will kill him," he said, "I will kill him."

The other tried to soothe him, then Madame appeared and they talked
about something else.

A magnificent figure of a woman, that Levantine, twice as powerful as I
am, and dazzling to look at with her diamond diadem, the jewels that
covered her huge white shoulders, her back as round as her breast, her
waist squeezed into a breastplate of greenish gold, which extended in
long stripes the whole length of her skirt. I never saw anything so
rich, so imposing. She was like one of those beautiful white elephants
with towers on their backs that we read about in books of travel. When
she walked, clinging painfully to the furniture, all her flesh shook and
her ornaments jangled like old iron. With it all a very shrill little
voice and a beautiful red face which a little negro boy kept fanning all
the time with a fan of white feathers as big as a peacock's tail.

It was the first time that that indolent savage had made her appearance
in Parisian society, and M. Jansoulet seemed very proud and very happy
that she had consented to preside