inted me out. I
was immediately awakened from my torpor and dragged out of my corner.

I have been weak enough at times, as Gubetta says, to jingle words at
the end of an idea, or to speak more modestly, at the end of certain
measured syllables. The Marquise, cognisant of the offence, but not of
the extenuating circumstances, launched forth into praise and flattering
hyperbole that lifted me to the level of Byron, Goethe, Lamartine,
discovered that I had a satanic look, and went on so that I suspected an
album.

This affected me gloomily and ferociously. There is nothing I despise
more than an album, unless it be two of them.

To avoid any such attempt, I broke into the most of the conversation
with several innocent provincialisms, and effected my retreat in a
masterly manner; advancing towards the door by degrees, and reaching it,
I sprang outside so suddenly and nimbly that I had gotten to the bottom
of the stairs before my absence was discovered.

Alas! no one can escape au album when it is predestined! The next day a
book, magnificently bound in Russia, arrived in a superb moire case in
the hands of a groom, with an accompanying note from the Infanta
soliciting the honor, &c.

All great men have their antipathies. James I. could not look upon a
glittering sword; Roger Bacon fainted at the sight of an apple; and
blank paper fills me with melancholy.

However, I resigned myself to the decrees of fate, and scribbled, I
don't know what, in the corner, and subscribed my initials as illegible
as those of Napoleon when in a passion.

This, I flattered myself, was the end of the tragedy, but no: a few days
afterwards I received an invitation to a select gathering, in such
amiable terms that I resolved to decline it.

Talleyrand said, "Never obey your first impulse, because it is good;" I
obeyed this Machiavellian maxim, and erred!

"_Eucharis_" was being performed at the opera; the sky was filled with
ugly, threatening clouds; I sought in vain for a companion to get tight
with, and moralize over a few bottles of wine, and so for want of a
gayer occupation I went to the Marquise.

Her apartments are a perfect series of catafalques, and seem to have
been upholstered by an undertaker. The drawing-room is hung in violet
damask; the bed-rooms in black velvet; the furniture is of ebony or old
oak; crucifixes, holy-water basins, folio bibles, death's-heads and
poniards adorned the enlivening interior. Several Zurbarans