your
orange-trees?"

"An excellent thought!" said the prince. "Mascari, see to the music."

The party rose simultaneously to adjourn to the garden; and then, for
the first time, the effect of the wine they had drunk seemed to make
itself felt.

With flushed cheeks and unsteady steps they came into the open air,
which tended yet more to stimulate that glowing fever of the grape.
As if to make up for the silence with which the guests had hitherto
listened to Zanoni, every tongue was now loosened,--every man talked,
no man listened. There was something wild and fearful in the contrast
between the calm beauty of the night and scene, and the hubbub and
clamour of these disorderly roysters. One of the Frenchmen, in especial,
the young Duc de R--, a nobleman of the highest rank, and of all the
quick, vivacious, and irascible temperament of his countrymen, was
particularly noisy and excited. And as circumstances, the remembrance
of which is still preserved among certain circles of Naples, rendered it
afterwards necessary that the duc should himself give evidence of what
occurred, I will here translate the short account he drew up, and which
was kindly submitted to me some few years ago by my accomplished and
lively friend, Il Cavaliere di B--.

"I never remember," writes the duc, "to have felt my spirits so excited
as on that evening; we were like so many boys released from school,
jostling each other as we reeled or ran down the flight of seven
or eight stairs that led from the colonnade into the garden,--some
laughing, some whooping, some scolding, some babbling. The wine had
brought out, as it were, each man's inmost character. Some were loud and
quarrelsome, others sentimental and whining; some, whom we had hitherto
thought dull, most mirthful; some, whom we had ever regarded as discreet
and taciturn, most garrulous and uproarious. I remember that in the
midst of our clamorous gayety, my eye fell upon the cavalier Signor
Zanoni, whose conversation had so enchanted us all; and I felt a
certain chill come over me to perceive that he wore the same calm and
unsympathising smile upon his countenance which had characterised it
in his singular and curious stories of the court of Louis XIV. I felt,
indeed, half-inclined to seek a quarrel with one whose composure
was almost an insult to our disorder. Nor was such an effect of this
irritating and mocking tranquillity confined to myself alone. Several of
the party have told me si