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"Nothing," he replied, "nothing at all, as you see. But the carnival has begun, so let's quickly get dressed."

"What happened?" he asked the count.

"Yes, that's as may be; but what about the condemned man?"

When Franz recovered his senses, he found Albert drinking a glass of water, which his pale colour showed he needed urgently, and the count already putting on his clown's costume. He automatically looked into the square. Everything had vanished: scaffold, executioners, victims. Only the people remained, noisy, busy, jovial. The bell on the Monte Citorio, which was rung only for the death of the pope and the beginning of the mascherata, was pouring forth its sound.

"So: nothing is left of that awful scene but the vestige of a dream."

"Because it was nothing more than a dream or a nightmare that you had."

"Also a dream, except that he remained asleep, while you woke up. Who can tell which of you is the more fortunate?"

"And Peppino," Franz asked, "what became of him?"

"Peppino is a sensible lad, not at all vain and, unlike most men who are furious when no one is paying attention to them, he was delighted to see that all eyes were turned on his fellow-prisoner. As a result he took advantage of the distraction to slip away into the crowd and disappear, without even thanking the worthy priests who had accompanied him. Man is undoubtedly a most ungrateful and selfish creature… But you must dress: look, Monsieur de Morcerf is setting you a good example."

"Well, Albert," Franz asked, "are you enjoying these departures from custom? Tell me honestly."

Albert was mechanically drawing on his taffeta trousers over his black trousers and polished boots.

"No," he said, "but I am truly pleased now to have seen such a thing and I understand what Monsieur le Comte said, namely that once one has managed to become accustomed to such a spectacle it is the only one that is still able to arouse any emotion in you."

"Besides which," said the count, "it is only at that moment that one can make a study of character. On the first step of the scaffold, death tears away the mask that one has worn all one's life and the true face appears. It must be admitted that Andrea's was not a pretty sight… What a horrible scoundrel! Come, gentlemen, let's get dressed!"

When they were dressed, they went down. The carriage was waiting at the door, full of confetti and bouquets of flowers. They joined the queue of traffic.

It would have been ridiculous for Franz to start putting on airs and not follow the example given by his two companions; so he in turn put on his costume and his mask, which was certainly no whiter than his face.

Franz and Albert were like men who had been conducted to an orgy to help them forget some awful grief and who, the more they drank and the more they became intoxicated, felt a curtain descend between the past and the present. They could still see -- or, rather, they continued to feel inside them -- the shadow of what they had witnessed. But little by little they were possessed by the intoxication of the crowd; their minds began to feel unsteady and the power of reason seemed to be slipping away; they experienced a strange need to take part in this noise, this movement, this dizziness. A handful of confetti which struck Morcerf, thrown from a nearby carriage, covered him in dust, as it did his two companions, while stinging his neck and wherever on his face was not covered by the mask, as if a gross of pins had been thrown at him; but it had the effect of driving him into the fray in which all the masks they encountered were already engaged. He rose in turn in the carriage, filled his hands from the sacks and hurled eggs and dragées at his neighbours with all the strength and skill he could muster.

It is hard to imagine a more complete contrast with what had just taken place. Instead of the gloomy and silent spectacle of death, the Piazza del Popolo was the scene of unbridled and garish merrymaking. A crowd of masked figures cascaded forth, bursting out on all sides, pouring through the doors and clambering through the windows. Carriages were emerging from every side-street, laden with pierrots, harlequins and dominos, marquesses and plebeians, grotesques, knights and peasants -- all yelling, waving their hands, throwing flour-filled eggs, confetti or bunches of flowers, assaulting friend and foe, stranger and acquaintance with words and missiles, without anyone having the right to object, with not a single reaction permitted except laughter.

If you were to imagine that lovely and magnificent thoroughfare, the Corso, lined from one end to the other on either side with four- or five-storey mansions, each with its balconies spread with hangings and every window decked with draperies; and at the balconies and the windows, three hundred thousand spectators, Romans, Italians or foreigners from the four corners of the earth -- every form of aristocracy brought together: aristocracy of birth, aristocracy of money, aristocracy of talent; charming women who, themselves carried away by the spectacle, are bending over the balconies and leaning out of the windows to shower the carriages passing beneath with a hail of confetti, which is repaid in bunches of flowers -- the air thick with falling confetti and rising flowers; and then on the road itself a joyful, unceasing, demented crowd, with crazy costumes: huge cabbages walking along, buffalo-heads roaring on men's bodies, dogs apparently walking on their hind legs; and in the midst of all this, in the midst of this temptation of Saint Anthony as it might have been dreamed by Callot, a mask raised for some Astarte to reveal her delicious features, which you want to follow but from which you are kept back by demons such as might haunt a nightmare… then you would have a rough idea of what the carnival is like in Rome.

Now, battle was joined. The recollection of what they had witnessed half an hour earlier entirely vanished from the minds of the two young men, so much were they distracted by the many-coloured, ever-moving, demented spectacle before their eyes. As for the Count of Monte Cristo, he had not once, as we have already observed, appeared to be impressed for a moment.

On the second circuit the count had the carriage stopped and asked his companions' permission to leave them, with the carriage at their disposal. Franz looked up: they were opposite the Palazzo Rospoli; and at the middle window, outside which there was a sheet of white damask with a red cross, he saw a blue domino costume under which he had no difficulty imagining the lovely Greek from the Teatro Argentina.

We forgot to mention that the count's coachman was dressed soberly in a black bear's skin exactly like the one worn by Odry in The Bear and the Pasha; and that the two lackeys standing behind the barouche had green monkey costumes, which fitted them perfectly, and masks on springs with which they were making faces at the passers-by.

"Gentlemen," said the count, "when you are tired of being actors and would like to become spectators again, you know that there are places for you in my windows. Meanwhile, please make use of my carriage, my coachman and my servants."

Franz thanked the count for his kind offer. As for Albert, he was engaged in flirting with a whole carriage full of Roman peasants which, like the count's, had stopped to take a rest, as vehicles are accustomed to do in traffic; he was showering it with bouquets.

Unfortunately for him, the traffic started to move again and he found himself turning back towards the Piazza del Popolo, while the carriage which had attracted his attention was going up towards the Palazzo di Venezia.

"Oh! I say!" he said to Franz. "Didn't you see?"

"No."

"What?" Franz asked.

"There: that barouche which is going off, full of Roman peasants."

"Oh, I hope that the carnival will not end without bringing me some kind of consolation!" he replied, half laughing and half serious.

"Well, I'm sure they are charming ladies."

"What a pity you are masked, my dear Albert," said Franz. "This was an opportunity to make up for your disappointment in love."

Despite these hopes, the whole day passed without any other adventure except two or three further meetings with the carriage bearing the Roman peasant women. On one of these occasions, either by accident or by design, Albert's mask fell off. At this, he took the rest of the bouquet of flowers and threw it into the other barouche.

One of the charming women whom Albert perceived under the fetching costume of a peasant from the Romagna must have been touched by this gallantry because, when the two friends' carriage next passed by, she in turn threw them a bouquet of violets.

"Laugh as loud as you wish," he replied, "but I really think so. I am not going to let go of this bouquet."

"There you are!" said Franz. "That could be the start of an adventure!"

"Don't dream of it!" said Franz, laughing. "It will serve as a mark of recognition."

"Bravo, my dear friend! Bravo!" said Franz. "This is developing splendidly. Shall I go? Would you rather be alone?"

Albert seized the flowers. As Franz had no reason to think that they were intended for him, he let Albert take them. Albert victoriously fixed the sprig of violets in his buttonhole and the carriage continued its triumphal progress.

The joke was soon close to reality because, when Franz and Albert, still carried along by the line of traffic, next passed the carriage with the contadine, the one who had thrown the sprig of violets to Albert clapped her hands when she saw it in his buttonhole.

"No, no, let's not rush things. I don't want to be fooled by what is just a first step, a meeting under the clock as we say at the Bal de l'Opéra. If the lovely peasant has any wish to go further, then we'll meet up with her again tomorrow -- or, rather, she will meet up with us. Then she can give me some sign of life and I'll see what is to be done."

"There's no denying it, my dear Albert," said Franz, "you are as wise as Nestor and as prudent as Ulysses. And if your Circe is to change you into some beast or other, she will have to be either very clever or very powerful."

Albert was right. The beautiful stranger had no doubt decided not to carry the intrigue any further that day because, although the two young men made several more circuits, they did not find the carriage they were looking for: it had no doubt disappeared down one of the neighbouring side-streets. So they went back to the Palazzo Rospoli, but the count too had vanished, with the blue domino. The two windows hung with yellow damask continued to be occupied by people who were no doubt his guests.

At that moment the same bell that had announced the opening of the mascherata sounded its end. At once the procession of traffic up and down the Corso dissolved and all the carriages quickly vanished into the adjoining streets. Franz and Albert were next to the Via delle Maratte: the coachman turned into it without a word and, travelling past the Palazzo Poli to the Piazza di Spagna, he pulled up next to the hotel.

Signor Pastrini came to the door to welcome his guests.

"A tailor?" said the hotelier. "For what?"

Franz asked Albert what he intended to do, but Albert had some important plans to carry out before he could think about going to the theatre; so, instead of replying, he asked if Signor Pastrini could find him a tailor.

"To make us some Roman peasant costumes by tomorrow, as elegant as possible."

Signor Pastrini shook his head. "Two costumes by tomorrow!" he said. "I beg Your Excellencies' pardon, but that is a very French request. Two costumes! You will certainly not find a tailor in Rome during the next week who will agree to sew six buttons on a waistcoat for you, even if you were to pay him an écu apiece for them!"

Franz's first consideration was to find out about the count and express his regret at not having returned to pick him up in time, but Signor Pastrini reassured him by letting him know that the Count of Monte Cristo had ordered a second carriage for himself, which had gone to the Palazzo Rospoli for him at four o'clock. Moreover he had been requested on the count's behalf to offer the two friends the key to his box in the theatre.

"So we must give up our idea of getting these costumes?"

"Very well, let it be L'Italiana in Algeri," said Albert. "But consider, Signor Pastrini, that this gentleman and I" (indicating Franz) "attach the highest importance to having the costumes that we asked for tomorrow morning."

"Leave it up to our host," Franz said. "He has already shown us that he is a man of resource. So why don't we have a quiet dinner, then go and see L'Italiana in Algeri?"

The innkeeper once more reassured his guests that they had nothing to worry about and that their needs would be fully met, so Franz and Albert went upstairs to take off their clowns' costumes. As he was getting out of his, Albert was very careful to put away his sprig of violets, which would serve as a sign of recognition for the next day.

"Not at all, because we have them ready-made. Let me look after it, and tomorrow when you wake up you will find a collection of hats, jackets and breeches which will meet your requirements."

The two friends sat down to dinner; but as they were eating, Albert could not refrain from pointing out the marked difference between the respective merits of Signor Pastrini's cook and the one employed by the Count of Monte Cristo; and indeed, honesty obliged Franz to confess, despite the reservations he still seemed to have on the subject of the count, that the comparison was not to the advantage of Signor Pastrini's chef.

"His Excellency the Count of Monte Cristo," he said, "has given definite orders that the carriage should remain at the disposal of their lordships for the whole day. Their lordships can therefore make use of it without any compunction."

Over dessert, the servant enquired to know the time when the two young men would like their carriage. Albert and Franz exchanged glances, because they were really afraid that they might be taking too many liberties. The servant understood.

During the first act, Countess G -- came into her box. The first place she looked was towards the place where, the previous evening, she had seen the count, so that she saw Franz and Albert in the box of the man about whom she had expressed such a strange opinion to Franz a day earlier. Her opera-glasses interrogated him with such emphasis that Franz realized it would be cruel to leave her curiosity unsatisfied any longer. So, taking advantage of the privilege of spectators in Italian theatres, which allows them to use the playhouses as their reception rooms, the two friends left their box to present their regards to the countess. No sooner had they come into her box than she motioned to Franz to take the place of honour. Albert sat behind them.

They determined to enjoy the count's courtesy to the full and asked for the horses to be harnessed while they went to change out of their daytime clothes into evening ones, the others having been slightly rumpled by the events of the day. After that, they repaired to the Teatro Argentina and took their places in the count's box.

"It's a long story."

"At least wait until the story has an ending."

"What do you mean?"

"All the more reason."

"Although we are not quite as intimate as you imply, I cannot deny, Madame la Comtesse, that we have taken advantage of his hospitality all day."

"Agreed. I do like stories to be complete. Meanwhile, how did you make contact? Who introduced you to him?"

"Tell it to me."

"Yesterday, after we left you."

"When?"

"How -- all day?"

"You would be too frightened by it."

"That's precisely it: this morning we took lunch from him, we went up and down the Corso in his carriage throughout the mascherata and finally, this evening, we are in his box at the theatre."

"Well, then," she said, hardly giving Franz time to sit down. "It appears that you cannot wait to make the acquaintance of this new Lord Ruthwen and that you are now the very best of friends?"

"Oh, the most banal imaginable: through the intermediary of our landlord."

"Yes and no."

"Does this mean that you are now acquaintances?"

"No one. On the contrary: he had himself introduced."

"By what means?"

"What's his name? You must at least know his name?"

"Is he a count?"

"Of course. The Count of Monte Cristo."

"We would be very hard to please if we were not to find him pleasing, Madame," said Albert. "A friend of ten years could not have done more for us than he did, and with the grace, delicacy of feeling and courtesy that betray a genuine man of the world."

"Not only in the same hotel, but on the same floor."

"No, it's the name of an island he has purchased."

"Yes, a Tuscan count."

"Come, come," said the countess, laughing. "You will find that my vampire is quite simply some nouveau riche who wants to be excused for his wealth and who has adopted the mask of Lara so as not to be mistaken for Rothschild. Did you see her?"

"Ask the Vicomte de Morcerf."

"Do you hear that, Monsieur? I am being referred to you."

"What kind of a name is that? It's not the name of any family."

"Huh! We must learn to swallow that," said the countess, who came from one of the oldest families in the Venezia. "What kind of a man is he, otherwise?"

"Is he staying at the Hôtel de Londres then, like you?"

"Well I never! Is the man a nabob? Do you know what it costs to have three windows like those for carnival week in the Palazzo Rospoli, that is to say the best place on the Corso?"

"No. I do believe that we heard the sound of her guzla, but she herself remained completely invisible."

"And where was this window with the white damask?" asked the countess.

"Her?" Franz asked, with a smile.

"At the Palazzo Rospoli."

"The beautiful Greek from yesterday."

"So the count had three windows in the Palazzo Rospoli?"

"Yes. Did you drive down the Corso?"

"Two or three hundred Roman écus…?"

"And did you notice two windows with yellow damask and one with white damask, marked with a red cross? Those were the count's."

"Two or three thousand, you should say."

"Naturally."

"My dear Franz," said Albert, "when you say 'invisible', you are quite simply trying to be mysterious. Who do you think was that blue domino we saw in the window hung with white damask?"

"Does his island bring in such an income?"

"The devil it does!"

"So why did he buy it?"

At this moment a visitor came in and Franz gave up his seat to the newcomer, according to custom. This move and the disturbance changed the subject of conversation.

"On a whim."

"His island? Not a baiocco."

An hour later the two friends returned to the hotel. Signor Pastrini had already taken care of their disguises for the next day and promised them that they would be pleased with the results of his ingenious efforts.

"The fact is," said Albert, "that he did seem quite eccentric to me. My dear man, if he were to live in Paris and go to our theatres, I would say that he was either a hoaxer, or else some poor devil destroyed by literature: there's no denying he made two or three quips this morning worthy of Didier or Antony."

"He's an eccentric?"

The next morning at nine he came into Franz's room, accompanied by a tailor carrying eight or ten Roman peasant costumes. The two friends chose two alike, more or less of their size, and requested their host to have about twenty ribbons sewn to each of their hats, and to obtain for them two of those charming striped silk scarves in bright colours that the men of the people are accustomed to tie round their waists on holidays.

Albert was anxious to see how he looked in his new costume: it was a jacket and trousers of blue velvet, embroidered stockings, buckled shoes and a silk waistcoat. Indeed Albert could not do otherwise than look elegant in this picturesque costume; and when the belt was fastened round his slender waist, and his hat, tilted a little to one side, let a shower of ribbons fall over his shoulder, Franz was obliged to admit that dress often has a lot to do with the superior physique that we attribute to some nations. The Turks -- so picturesque in the old days with their long, brightly coloured robes -- are now hideous in their blue buttoned frock-coats and those Greek hats which make them look like wine bottles with red tops. Don't you agree?

Franz complimented Albert who, moreover, was standing in front of the mirror and smiling at himself with a quite unmistakable air of self-satisfaction. It was at this point that the Count of Monte Cristo came in.

"Gentlemen," he said, "since, agreeable though it is to have a companion in pleasure, freedom is more agreeable still, I have come to tell you that I am leaving the carriage that you used yesterday at your disposal today and for the following days. Our host must have told you that I have three or four at livery with him, so you are not depriving me in any way. Feel free to enjoy it, either for pleasure or for business. Our meeting-place, should we have anything to say to one another, is the Palazzo Rospoli."

The two friends did not presume to repay the count for the luncheon he had given them: it would have been a poor jest to offer him, in exchange for his excellent table, the very mediocre fare that made up Signor Pastrini's table d'hôte. They said as much openly and he accepted their excuses with evident appreciation of their thoughtfulness.

The count stayed with them for about a quarter of an hour, conversing fluently on every subject. As we have already been able to observe, he was well acquainted with the literature of every country. A glance at the walls of his drawing-room had shown Franz and Albert that he was a connoisseur of fine art. A few unpretentious words which he let slip in passing proved that he was not without some understanding in science; it appeared that he had particularly concerned himself with chemistry.

The two young friends tried to make some objection, but there was really no good reason to refuse an offer which suited them very well, so eventually they accepted.

Albert was charmed by the count's manners and was only prevented from recognizing him as a true aristocrat because of his learning. Most of all he was delighted at being able to have full use of the carriage: he had some ideas concerning his graceful peasant girls and, since they had appeared to him in a very elegant carriage, he was not sorry at being able to continue to seem to be on an equal footing with them in this respect.

At half-past one the two friends went downstairs. The coachman and the footmen had had the notion of putting their livery on over their wild animals' skins, which made them look even more grotesque than the day before, and were complimented warmly by Albert and Franz. Albert had sentimentally attached his sprig of fading violets to his buttonhole.

At the first sound of the bell, they set off and hurried into the Corso down the Via Vittoria.

On their second circuit, a bouquet of fresh violets, thrown from a carriage full of young lady clowns into the count's barouche told Albert that, like himself and his friend, the peasant girls from the previous day had changed costume and, whether by accident or by reason of the same feeling that had inspired him, gallantly, to adopt their costume, they had chosen the one that he and Franz had been wearing.

Albert put the fresh flowers in place of the old ones, but kept the faded bouquet in his hand; and, when he once more passed by the barouche, lifted it tenderly to his lips: not only the person who had thrown it to him but also her companions seemed to find this highly amusing.

It goes without saying that the flirtatious exchange between Albert and the lady clown with the bunch of violets lasted the whole day.

The day was no less lively than the one before; a careful observer might even have noticed more noise and more merriment. The count was seen for a moment at the window, but when the carriage came round again, he had already gone.

So he did not intend to go to the carnival the next day; for, despite the benevolence with which he tempers his grandeur, it is always with respect full of deep emotion that one prepares to bow before that noble and saintly old man, Gregory XVI.

That evening, when he returned, Franz found a letter from the embassy telling him that he would have the honour of an audience with His Holiness the following day. On every previous occasion when he had visited Rome, he had asked for and obtained the same favour; and, for religious reasons and out of gratitude, he did not want to stop off in the capital of the Christian world without paying a respectful homage to one of the successors of Saint Peter who stands as a rare example of all the Christian virtues.

At ten past five, Albert returned. He was overjoyed: the clown had resumed her peasant costume and, while passing by Albert's barouche, lifted her mask. She was enchanting.

Coming out of the Vatican, Franz went straight back to the hotel, deliberately avoiding the Corso. He was carrying with him a treasure of pious thoughts which would have been profaned by the wild merriment of the mascherata.

Franz sincerely congratulated his friend, who took the compliments as no more than his due. By certain signs of authentic elegance, he claimed to have recognized that the beautiful stranger must belong to the highest ranks of Roman society. He was determined to write to her the next day.

While Albert was confiding in him, Franz noticed that he seemed to have a question he wanted to put but hesitated to ask. He pressed him, declaring that he would promise in advance to make any sacrifice he could for his friend's happiness. Albert allowed himself to be entreated for just as long as good manners required between friends and finally confessed to Franz that he would do him a great service if he were to leave him in sole charge of the carriage on the following day. He attributed the lovely peasant's exceptional kindness in lifting her mask to the absence of his friend.

Naturally Franz was not so selfish that he would hinder Albert in the midst of an adventure that promised to be so satisfactory both for his curiosity and for his self-esteem. He was well enough acquainted with his friend's exceptional lack of discretion to realize that he would be kept informed of the smallest details of his success. And since, in two or three years of travelling the length and breadth of Italy, he had never had the good fortune even to begin such an intrigue on his own account, Franz was not displeased to discover how matters proceeded in such cases. So he promised Albert that on the following day he would be content to watch the scene from the windows of the Palazzo Rospoli.

The next day he saw Albert going past again and again, with a huge bouquet, no doubt acting as the bearer of a love letter. This probability became certainty when Franz saw the same bouquet -- immediately identifiable by a circle of white camellias -- in the hands of a delightful clown dressed in pink satin.

That evening there was not merely joy, but delirium. Albert had no doubt that the beautiful stranger would answer him by the same means. Franz anticipated his wishes by saying that he found all that noise tiring and had decided to spend the following day looking through his album and making notes.

"Well, now," he asked Franz, when the latter had finished reading, "what do you think of that, dear friend?"

Albert was not mistaken. The following evening he came leaping in a single bound into Franz's room, holding a sheet of paper by one of its corners and brandishing it in the air. "Well, was I mistaken?"

"Read it."

"Did she reply?" Franz exclaimed.

The tone of Albert's voice as he said this would be impossible to convey. Franz took the letter and read:

On Tuesday evening at seven o'clock get out of your carriage at the entrance to Via dei Pontefici and follow the Roman peasant woman who will take hold of your moccoletto. When you reach the first step of the Church of San-Giacomo, make sure to tie a pink ribbon on the shoulder of your clown's costume, so that you can be recognized. Between now and then you will not see me again. Constancy and discretion.

"I think," said Franz, "that the business is taking on the character of a most agreeable adventure."

"I think the same, and I am very afraid that you may be going alone to the Duke of Bracciano's ball."

"Laugh if you wish, joke as much as you like," Albert went on. "I am in love."

"Yes," Franz replied again.

"You are predestined," Franz said, once more returning the letter.

"Yes."

The very same morning, Franz and Albert had received invitations from the celebrated Roman banker.

"So! Re-read the note, examine the writing, and tell me if there is a single mistake in grammar or spelling?"

The writing was certainly charming, the spelling faultless.

"Don't you know how poorly educated the women of the mezzo cito are in Italy?" This was a term designating the bourgeoisie.

"Take care, my dear Albert," said Franz. "All of high society will be at the duke's; and if your beautiful stranger is really an aristocrat, she will not be able to escape putting in an appearance."

"Good Lord! You scare me!" said Franz. "I can see that not only will I be going alone to the Duke of Bracciano's ball, but I may well also find myself returning on my own to Florence."

"Whether she does or not, I shall not alter my opinion of her. Have you read the letter?"

Albert looked as though he were about to argue seriously his claims to the academic chair, but at that moment a servant came to tell the young friends that dinner was served. Love, for Albert, was not incompatible with a healthy appetite, so he hurried to sit down at the table beside his friend, though quite ready to resume the discussion after dinner.

After dinner, however, the Count of Monte Cristo was announced. They had not seen him for two days: business, according to Signor Pastrini, had taken him to Civita Vecchia. He had left the evening before and got back only an hour ago.

"Decidedly. A few more meetings like this one and I feel sure that we shall see you elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres."

He was charming. Whether because he was watching, or because the circumstances did not strike those acrimonious chords that on other occasions had charged his utterances with bitterness, he was more or less like other men. Franz found him truly enigmatic. The count could not doubt that the young traveller had recognized him, yet not a single word had fallen from his lips since their acquaintance was renewed to suggest that they had met before. For his part, much though Franz would like to have referred to their previous interview, he was restrained by the fear of displeasing a man who had shown such consideration towards him and his friend, so he went on copying the other man's reserve.

"The fact is that, if my stranger is as agreeable as she is beautiful, then I do declare I shall be settling in Rome for at least six weeks. I adore the city, and in any case I have always had this marked predilection for archaeology."

The count had learned that the two friends wanted a box in the Teatro Argentina and had been told that all places were reserved; so he was once more bringing them the key to his box -- at least, this was the avowed purpose of his visit.

Franz and Albert objected, on the grounds that they did not want to deprive the count, but he replied that he was going to the Teatro Palli that evening, so his box at the Argentina would be wasted if they did not take advantage of it. This made up their minds.

Franz was becoming accustomed to the count's pallor, which had struck him so forcibly on first meeting. He could not deny the beauty of the man's stern face, of which the pale colour was either the only defect or perhaps the chief quality. Franz, a true Byronic hero, could not see, or even think of, him without imagining those sombre features on the shoulders of Manfred or under Lara's head-dress. He had the furrowed brow that spoke of bitter, inescapable thoughts; he had those burning eyes that penetrate to the depths of a soul; he had those haughty, contemptuous lips which give the words that issue from them a particular bent, so that they become deeply engraved in the memory of whoever hears them.

Albert was constantly remarking how lucky they had been to meet such a man. Franz was less enthusiastic, though he too was susceptible to the influence exercised by any superior being over those around him. He thought about the plan the count had mentioned once or twice of going to Paris and had no doubt that, with his unusual personality, his striking features and his huge wealth, he would make a considerable mark there. Yet he himself would prefer not to be in Paris when the count was there.

The count was no longer young: forty at least; yet one could easily understand that he would prevail over any young men among whom he might find himself. The truth is that he also had this in common with the fantastic heroes of the English poet: that he appeared to possess the gift of spellbinding others.

The evening passed as most evenings do at the theatre in Italy, not in listening to the singers, but in renewing acquaintances and conversation. Countess G -- wanted to discuss the count, but Franz told her that he had something much more novel to tell her and, despite Albert's exhibitions of false modesty, he described the major event that had taken up most of the two friends' thoughts over the previous three days.

At last Tuesday came, the last and most rowdy day of the carnival. On Tuesday the theatres are open at ten in the morning because, after eight in the evening, Lent starts. On the Tuesday, everyone who -- through shortage of time, money or inclination -- has not yet taken part in the festival joins the bacchanalian orgy, is carried away by the revels and contributes a share of noise and movement to the sum of movement and noise.

Intrigues of this kind are not rare in Italy (at least, if travellers are to be believed), and the countess, far from expressing incredulity, congratulated Albert on the start of an adventure that promised to end in such a satisfactory manner. They parted, agreeing to meet at the Duke of Bracciano's ball, to which all Rome had been invited.

The lady with the bouquet kept her promise to Albert: neither the next day nor the one after did she give him any sign of life.

From two until five Franz and Albert followed the line of carriages, exchanging handfuls of confetti with those in the line opposite and with the pedestrians walking between the feet of the horses and the wheels of the carriages, without a single accident occurring, a single argument erupting or a single fight breaking out in all this appalling chaos. The Italians are supreme in this respect: a festivity for them is a genuine festivity. The author of this story, who lived for five or six years in Italy, can never once remember having seen a celebration interrupted by any of those disturbances that inevitably accompany our own.

As the day wore on, so the noise grew greater. On all those pavements, in all those carriages, at all those windows, not a single mouth remained silent, not a single arm remained still. It was a veritable human storm made up of a thunder of voices and a hail of dragées, bouquets, eggs, oranges and flowers.

The races, like the moccoli, are a particular feature of the last days of carnival. At the sound of these cannon, the carriages instantly broke ranks and each headed for the side-street nearest wherever they happened to be. All these manoeuvres take place with unbelievable skill and wonderful speed, without the police bothering in the slightest to assign anyone to a post or to show anyone where he should go. Those on foot pressed themselves against the palazzi. Then a great sound of horses' hoofs and rattling of sabres was heard.

Albert was a huge success in his clown's costume. On his shoulder he had a knotted pink ribbon, the ends of which fell down to his knees. To avoid any confusion between them, Franz had kept his Roman peasant's costume.

At three o'clock, the sound of cannon being fired across the Piazza del Popolo and the Palazzo di Venezia, though it could only just be heard through this awful tumult, announced that the races were about to begin.

A squadron of carabinieri, fifteen abreast, galloped the whole length of the Corso, clearing it in readiness for the barberi. When the squadron reached the Palazzo di Venezia, the sound of another roll of cannon gave the signal that the road was clear.

Needing no other signal but that, the carriages moved off again, cascading back towards the Corso, flowing out from every street like tributaries that had been dammed for a moment, before simultaneously pouring back into the bed of the river that they fed, and the huge torrent resumed its course, swifter than ever, between the two granite banks.

Almost at once, in the midst of a vast, universal, inconceivable clamour, they saw seven or eight horses go past like wraiths, driven on by the cheering of three hundred thousand voices and the metal castanets clattering on their backs. Then the cannon in the Castel Sant'Angelo fired three times: this meant that number three was the winner.

Now, however, a new element had added still further to the noise and movement of the crowd. The sellers of moccoli had come on to the scene.

The same is true of the moccoletto as of life: mankind has so far found only one way of transmitting it, which he owes to God. But he has found a thousand ways to extinguish it -- and here the Devil has surely given him some little help.

Everyone hastened to buy moccoletti, Franz and Albert with the rest.

A moccoletto is lit by bringing it up to another source of light. But who can describe the thousand ways that have been invented to put out a moccoletto: great puffs of breath, monstrous bellows, superhuman fans?

Night was falling fast. Already, at the cry "Moccoli!", repeated by the strident voices of a thousand manufacturers, two or three stars began to shine above the crowd. This was the signal.

In ten minutes, fifty thousand lights glittered all the way from the Palazzo di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo, and back up from the Piazza del Popolo to the Palazzo di Venezia. It was like a vast congregation of will-o'-the-wisps, impossible to envisage if you have never seen it: imagine that all the stars in the sky were to come down and dance wildly about the earth, to the accompaniment of cries such as no human ear has ever heard elsewhere on its surface.

Moccoli or moccoletti are candles of varying thickness, from an Easter candle to a taper, which excite two contradictory ambitions in the actors of the great finale of the Roman carnival: first, to keep one's own moccoletto alight; second, to extinguish everyone else's.

This is the time, above all, when class distinctions are abolished. The facchino takes hold of the prince, the prince of the Trasteveran, the Trasteveran of the bourgeois, each one blowing out, extinguishing and relighting. If old Aeolus were to appear at this moment he would be proclaimed King of the Moccoli, and Aquilo the heir presumptive to the throne.

This wild, blazing dash lasted some two hours. The Corso was lit as if in broad daylight and the features of the spectators' faces could be distinguished up to the third or fourth storey. Every five minutes Albert took out his watch. At last, it showed seven o'clock.

The steps were crowded with bystanders and masked figures struggling to take the candles from each other's hands. Franz watched Albert as he went, and he saw him put his foot on the first step; almost at once a masked figure, wearing the familiar costume of the peasant girl with the bouquet, reached out and took his moccoletto, without Albert this time offering any resistance. Franz was too far away to hear what they said, but her words were doubtless reassuring, for he saw Albert and the girl walk off, arm in arm. For a time he followed them through the crowd, but he lost sight of them at the Via Macello.

The two friends had reached exactly the corner of the Via dei Pontefici. Albert leapt out of the carriage, his moccoletto in his hand.

Two or three masked figures tried to come up to him either to put it out or take it away, but Albert was a skilled boxer. He sent them reeling a good ten yards, one after the other, and continued running towards the Church of San Giacomo.

Franz found himself in total darkness.

At the same moment, all the cries ceased, as if the breath of wind that had put out the lights had carried off the noise at the same time. All that could be heard was the rumbling of the carriages as they took the masked figures home. All that could still be seen were the few lights burning behind the windows.

Suddenly the bell which signals the end of the carnival rang out and at the same moment all the moccoli went out simultaneously, as if by enchantment. You would have thought that one single, enormous breath of wind had extinguished them all.

The carnival was over.