who were about to retire, each with
his own interests at heart instead of those of Liparia. He suspected
this from their humble attitudes before him, the crown-prince, when he
had spoken to all of them.... He felt that they were only playing a
part, that there was much in them that they did not allow to transpire;
and he suddenly asked himself why, why this should all be so, why so
much show, nothing but show.... And he was suffering now, deep in his
breast; the tightness of his uniform, loaded with decorations, oppressed
him....

He saw old Countess Myxila and some other ladies, whom he had seen
curtseying amid the crackling of their trains and the sudden downward
glitter of their diamonds, whom he had seen flushing with pleasure
because the Duke of Xara had taken notice of them. And the wife also of
the court-marshal, the Duchess of Yemena, who had so long been absent
from court in voluntary exile at her estate in Vaza: he saw her
approaching on Prince Dutri's arm. For he did not know her: years ago,
when she was at court, he was a boy of fifteen, undergoing a strict
military education, seldom with the empress and never at the court
festivals; he had never seen the duchess at that time.

Now, in the twilight of that one lamp, with the weather raging outside,
he saw her once more and she became as it were transparent in the lines
of the rain; she looked strange, seen through the rain, as through a
curtain of wet muslin. A tall woman, voluptuously formed, half-naked
under the white radiance of her diamond necklace, that was how she
approached him: her hair blue-black with a gleam in it, her face a
little pale under a thin bloom of rose powder; she came nearer, slowly,
hesitating, in her yellow-gold figured satin, edged with heavy sable;
she bowed before him, with a deep, reverential curtsey before the
imperial presence: her head sank upon her breast, the tiara in her black
hair shot forth rays, her whole stature curved down as with one
serpentine line of grace in the material of gleaming gold that shone
about her bosom and seemed to break over the thick folds of her train
with a filagree of light. He had spoken to her. She rose from the
billows of her reverential grace; she replied, he forgot what; her eyes
sparkled upon his like black stars. She had made an impression upon him.
He thought it was because he had heard her much spoken of as a woman
with a life full of passion, a thing that was a riddle to him. His
educa