Part 49 (1/2)

On this she scolded me still more, called me a little goose, and told me I should find out to my cost; and with this threat she left me to prepare for the ball.

I was busy enough until evening getting everything ready. According to the officer's advice I wore a broad red-white-green ribbon as a sash, and my _coiffure_ was a simple bouquet of white and red roses, to which the green leaves gave the national colour. I never observed before how well these colours blend.

The two officers waited on us _en pleine parade_, and paid us so many compliments, I could not imagine how they learnt them all. I was obliged to laugh, to put off my embarra.s.sment.

”Well, you will see tears will be the end of all this,” said mamma; but nevertheless she continued arranging and altering something or other about my dress, that if they did carry me away, they should at least find everything in order.

The officers accompanied us to the ballroom. I was already enjoying the idea of the effect which my national ribbon and our two beaux would produce; and, _entre nous_, I could not give up the hope, that if all the others really had square heads, we should have the only two round ones in the room!

But great was my mistake and surprise.

There was not one of my companions who had not at least twice as much national ribbon on her dress as I had; and as to the officers, our two cavaliers held but the third rank among them.

One was more agreeable, more fascinating, handsomer, livelier than the other; how is it possible that men like these can shed so much blood!

There was one in particular who attracted my attention--not mine alone, but everybody's. He was a young captain--his strikingly handsome face, and tall, graceful figure became the braided attila so well, it seemed to have been moulded on him.

And then his dancing! with what animation he went through the mazur and csardas; one could have rushed through the crowd to embrace him--I do not talk of myself; and, what was more than dancing--more than compliments, a _je ne sais quoi_ in the large, dark, dreamy eyes; you cannot imagine _that_, it is not to be described--it bewildered, inspired, overpowered, and enchanted at the same moment. In less than an hour, every girl in the room was in love with him. I do not except myself. If they are as irresistible on the field of battle, I do not know what could withstand them. Imagine my feelings, when all at once he stepped up to me and requested the honour of the next quadrille!

Unfortunately, I was engaged. What would I not have given at that moment, had a courier entered to call away my dancer.

”Perhaps the next one?” said the captain, seating himself beside me.

I do not know what I said, or whether I replied at all; I only know I felt as I do when flying in a dream.

”But you will forget, perhaps, that you promised me?” he continued.

Had I not suddenly recollected myself, I should probably have told him that sooner could I forget my existence; however, I only replied, in a very indifferent tone, that I should not forget.

”But you do not know me!”

A country simpleton would have answered in my place, ”Among a hundred--among thousands! at the first glance!”

Not I! As if I were doing the simplest thing in the world, I took a single rosebud from my breast and gave it to him. ”I shall know you by this,” I said, without betraying the slightest agitation.

The captain silently pressed the rose to his lips; I did not look, but I _knew_ it. I would not have encountered his eyes at that moment for all the world.

He then left me and sat down under a mirror opposite; he did not dance, and seemed absorbed in his own reflections.

Meanwhile two csardas and a polonaise were danced, after which our quadrille would come. You may conceive how long the time appeared; these eternal ”harom a tanczes” seemed absolutely to have no end. I never saw people dance so furiously; and although it was the third night they had not slept, nothing would tire them out. However, I amused myself pretty well by making the acquaintance of the commander of the battalion, Major Sch----, who is a most diverting person.

His name is German; and though he speaks Hungarian shockingly, he will always speak it, even if he is addressed in German or French. Then he is most dreadfully deaf, and accustomed to such loud-toned conversation, one would think the cannons were conversing together.

They say he is a very gallant soldier; but his appearance is not prepossessing--an uncouth, grotesque figure, with a long thin face, short-cut hair, and a grisly beard, which is not at all becoming. But the most amusing thing was, that what I spoke he did not hear; and what he spoke I did not understand. He brought me over a box of _bonbons_; and I complained of the badness of confectionary in our town. He probably supposed from my grimace that somebody had offended me at the ball, and answered something, from which--by the gestures which accompanied it--I could only infer that he intended cutting the offender in pieces; unless indeed what others would express under such circ.u.mstances may be the common gesticulation of men who live in war.

At last, my quadrille came. The band played the symphony, and the dancers hastened to seek their partners.

My heart almost burst from my dress when I saw my dancer approach, and, bowing low, press the little flower to his heart.