cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can
convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris,
the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love
flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter,
impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man
lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a
declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the
tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if
terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate
perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is
said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious
reflections concerning the future.

"'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself.

"Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage
with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to
exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of
his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so
often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not
absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a
moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of
boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than
once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger.

"'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge
this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived
too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus.
I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.'