h as
I had the beginning. I tried to dismiss the episode from my mind. For a
few days I felt a dull pain in my shoulders, which annoyed me at night
also, and disturbed my sleep. The image of the nun haunted me, and the
sombre, penetrating eyes were present to me in my very dreams. This
vexed me, and I mentally abused the royal gentleman in every key who had
pushed his joke rather too far.

A week passed, and the court chamberlain issued invitations for the
third masked ball at the palace. I purchased a sailor's dress, and on
the evening of the ball tripped up the marble stairs in the best of
spirits. It had in the meanwhile occurred to me that I had perhaps
imbibed too much, and that the prince in nun's clothing had perhaps
observed my condition, and made me his victim for that reason. But I
rejected that proposition. In the first place, I had not taken much to
drink; certainly two or three glasses of champagne and lemonade were
not worth mentioning when I remembered what quantities of alcohol I had
frequently absorbed in my university days in Germany. I was a brave boon
companion, and capable of consuming a great deal. So how should a few
paltry little glasses make me so unsteady on my feet as to collapse
in dancing a fast gallop? Absurd! I was sure enough of myself, and
sufficiently well brought up in social customs, to know how much one
may drink at a court ball. No--I was convinced that I had not been
intoxicated, but on this occasion I resolved to exercise special
caution, and to be strictly temperate, in the event of the disguised
perpetrator of pranks again attempting to make the German stranger the
butt of his impudence. This time he should meet his match; I would keep
my head clear and my feet steady enough to venture a dance with him. The
constantly suspicious attitude of my mind, to be sure, interfered with
my pleasure very considerably. I was in a too observant mood to float on
the topmost wave of enjoyment, and besides an extraordinary disquietude
had seized upon me, a contraction about the heart that was quite new to
me, such as sensitive people undergo before a storm or in anticipation
of momentous changes of fortune. I wandered about restlessly. Numerous
though the merry masks that flitted around me, that nun's indescribable
black eyes did not appear, and no effort was made to involve me again as
the hero of another frolic. Time was dragging heavily. I glanced at my
watch, and wished the supper hour migh