Marquise de Gallifet, as the Angel Gabriel, with enormous real swan's
wings suspended from her shoulders, looked the part to perfection, and
most angelic with her lovely smile, blond hair, and graceful figure.

Princess Metternich was dressed as Night, in dark-blue tulle covered with
diamond stars. Her husband said to me, "Don't you think that Pauline looks
well in her nightgown?"

Countess Castiglione, the famous beauty, was dressed as Salammbo in a
costume remarkable for its lack of stuff, the idea taken from the new
Carthaginian novel of Gustave Flaubert. The whole dress was of black
satin, the waist without any sleeves, showing more than an usual amount of
bare arms and shoulders; the train was open to the waist, disclosing the
countess's noble leg as far up as it went incased in black-silk tights.

The young Count de Choiseul, who had blackened his face to represent an
Egyptian page, not only carried her train, but held over the head of the
daughter of Hamilcar an umbrella of Robinson Crusoe dimensions. Her gold
crown fell off once while walking about, and Choiseul made every one laugh
when he picked it up and put it on his own black locks. She walked on all
unconscious, and wondered why people laughed.

My costume was that of a Spanish dancer. Worth told me that he had put his
whole mind upon it; it did not feel much heavier for that: a banal yellow
satin skirt, with black lace over it, the traditional red rose in my hair,
red boots and a bolero embroidered in steel beads, and small steel balls
dangling all over me. Some com-pliments were paid to me, but unfortunately
not enough to pay the bill; if compliments would only do that sometimes,
how gladly we would receive them! But they are, as it is, a drug in the