experience, for until last year (when we were absent)
all masks had been prohibited, and now everybody has eaten of the tree
of good and evil till not an apple is left. Peni persecuted me to let
him have a domino--with tears and embraces--he "_almost never_ in all his
life had had a domino," and he would like it so. Not a black domino!
no--he hated black--but a blue domino, trimmed with pink! that was his
taste. The pink trimming I coaxed him out of, but for the rest, I let
him have his way. . . . For my part, the universal madness reached me
sitting by the fire (whence I had not stirred for three months), and you
will open your eyes when I tell you that I went (in domino and masked)
to the great opera-ball. Yes! I did, really. Robert, who had been
invited two or three times to other people's boxes, had proposed to
return their kindness by taking a box himself at the opera this night,
and entertaining two or three friends with galantine and champagne. Just
as he and I were lamenting the impossibility of my going, on that very
morning the wind changed, the air grew soft and mild, and he maintained
that I might and should go. There was no time to get a domino of my
own (Robert himself had a beautiful one made, and I am having it
metamorphosed into a black silk gown for myself!) so I sent out and
hired one, buying the mask. And very much amused I was. I like to see
these characteristic things. (I shall never rest, Sarianna, till I risk
my reputation at the 'bal de l'opera' at Paris). Do you think I was
satisfied with staying in the box? No, indeed. Down I went, and Robert
and I elbowed our way through the crowd to the remotest corner of
the ball below. Somebody smote me on the shoulder and cried "Bella
Mascherina!" and I answered as impudently as one feels under a mask.
At two o'clock in the morning, however, I had to give up and come away
(being overcome by the heavy air) and ingloriously left Robert and
our friends to follow at half-past four. Think of the refinement and
gentleness--yes, I must call it _superiority_ of this people--when no
excess, no quarrelling, no rudeness nor coarseness can be observed in
the course of such wild masked liberty; not a touch of licence anywhere,
and perfect social equality! Our servant Ferdinando side by side in the
same ball-room with the Grand Duke, and no class's delicacy offended
against! For the Grand Duke went down into the ball-room for a short
time. . . .'

The summer of 1857