h
marked distinction as they move here and there among the
promenaders. Quadrille music throughout the dialogue.
Count SERGIUS PAVLOVICH PANSHINE, who has just
arrived, is standing anxiously in the doorway of an antechamber
with his eyes fixed upon a lady in the costume of a maid of honor
in the time of Catherine II. The lady presently disengages herself
from the crowd, and passes near Count PANSHINE, who
impulsively takes her by the hand and leads her across the threshold
of the inner apartment, which is unoccupied.

HE.

Pauline!

SHE.

You knew me?

HE.

How could I have failed?
A mask may hide your features, not your soul.
There is an air about you like the air
That folds a star. A blind man knows the night,
And feels the constellations. No coarse sense
Of eye or ear had made you plain to me.
Through these I had not found you; for your eyes,
As blue as violets of our Novgorod,
Look black behind your mask there, and your voice--
I had not known that either. My heart said,
"Pauline Pavlovna."

SHE.

Ah! Your heart said that?
You trust your heart, then! 'Tis a serious risk!--
How is it you and others wear no mask?

HE.

The Emperor's orders.

SHE.

Is the Emperor here?
I have not seen him.

HE.

He is one of the six
In scarlet kaftans and all masked alike.
Watch--you will note how every one bows down
Before those figures, thinking each by chance
May be the Tsar; yet none knows which is he.
Even his counterparts are left in doubt.
Unhappy Russia! No serf ever wore
Such chains as gall our Emperor these sad days.
He dare trust no man.

SHE.

All men are so false.

HE.

Spare one, Pauline Pavlovna.

SHE.

No; all, all!
I think there is no truth left in the world,
In man or woman. Once were noble souls.--
Count Sergius, is Nastasia here to-night?

HE.

Ah! then you know! I thought to tell you first.
Not here, beneath these hundred curious eyes,
In all this glare of light; but in some place
Where I could throw me at your feet and weep.
In what shape came the story to your ear?
Decked in the teller's colors, I'll be sworn;
The truth, but in the livery