At the age of sixteen, Ralph went to the
capital with the intention of entering the
Military Academy. He was a tall, handsome youth,
slender of stature, and carried himself as erect
as a candle. He had a light, clear complexion
of almost feminine delicacy; blonde, curly hair,
which he always kept carefully brushed; a low
forehead, and a straight, finely modeled nose.
There was an expression of extreme sensitiveness
about the nostrils, and a look of indolence
in the dark-blue eyes. But the ensemble of his
features was pleasing, his dress irreproachable,
and his manners bore no trace of the awkward
self-consciousness peculiar to his age. Immediately
on his arrival in the capital he hired a
suite of rooms in the aristocratic part of the
city, and furnished them rather expensively,
but in excellent taste. From a bosom friend,
whom he met by accident in the restaurant's
pavilion in the park, he learned that a pair of
antlers, a stuffed eagle, or falcon, and a couple
of swords, were indispensable to a well-appointed
apartment. He accordingly bought these articles
at a curiosity-shop. During the first weeks
of his residence in the city he made some feeble
efforts to perfect himself in mathematics, in
which he suspected he was somewhat deficient.
But when the same officious friend laughed at
him, and called him "green," he determined to