The Count wanted to get to know everything about the Captain, but the Captain was a quiet man, not in the least vain, and in general laconic, and the Count had to try every turn and trick he knew to get anything out of him at all. They paced together up and down one side of the room while Eduard, excited by wine and hopeful anticipation, chattered gaily with Ottilie over beside the window. But Charlotte and the Baroness walked in silence side by side back and forth on the other side of the room. Their silence and idle loitering about eventually brought the party to a standstill. The women withdrew to their wing, the men withdrew to theirs, and so this day seemed to have come to an end.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EDUARD accompanied the Count to his room and was happy to be induced to stay for a while and talk with him. The Count became lost in memories of earlier times. He reflected on the beauty of Charlotte, on which as a connoisseur he expatiated with much warmth: ‘A beautiful foot is a great gift of nature. This charm is indestructible. I watched her walking today. She still makes you want to kiss her shoe and do as the Sarmatians do, who know of nothing better than to drink the health of someone they love and respect out of her shoe – a rather barbarous way of doing honour but a deeply felt one.’

The tip of the foot was not the only object these two intimates found to admire. From discussing Charlotte they went on to discussing past adventures and recalled the obstacles that used to be placed in the way of these lovers’ meeting and what trouble they had taken and what artifices they had had to invent merely so as to be able to tell one another they loved one another.

‘Do you remember,’ the Count said, ‘an occasion when our lords and masters paid a visit to their uncle and they all met together in the great rambling mansion, and how I then stood by you in a certain adventure and how very helpful and unselfish I was? The day had been spent in solemnities and ceremonial dress, and we were, if you remember, determined that at any rate part of the night was going to be spent in unbuttoned ease among more congenial company.’

‘I remember you had made a note of the way to the quarters of the ladies-in-waiting,’ said Eduard, ‘and to my beloved we succeeded in finding our way.’

‘Who,’ said the Count, ‘thought more about the proprieties than she did about my comfort and had kept with her a chaperone of an extreme ugliness, so that while you two were billing and cooing together I was having a very unpleasant time of it.’

‘It was only yesterday,’ Eduard said, ‘when we heard you were arriving, that I was talking with my wife about that escapade, and especially about what happened when we withdrew. We lost our way and came upon the guardroom. We now thought we could find our way out, having arrived here, and so we thought we could go straight past the guard as we had gone straight past all the others in the place. Do you remember our amazement when we opened the door? The floor was strewn with rows of mattresses and those giants were lying on them asleep. The only one awake in that guardroom looked at us in astonishment; but we, with the courage and wantonness of youth, strode quite calmly over the outstretched boots without waking even one of those snoring children of Enoch.’

‘I had a strong urge to make a noise,’ said the Count, ‘and we should have seen a very strange resurrection then!’

At that moment the great clock struck twelve.

‘It is full midnight,’ said the Count, smiling, ‘and the time is now ripe. I have to ask you a favour, my dear Baron: conduct me tonight as I conducted you that night we have been speaking of. I have promised the Baroness I would visit her again. We have not been alone together the whole day, we have not seen one another for so long, and nothing could be more natural than for us to want to spend an intimate hour together. Show me how to get there; I can find my own way back, and in any case there won’t be any boots lying around to stumble over.’

‘I shall be only too glad to do this favour for a guest,’ Eduard replied. ‘The only thing is, all three women are over in that wing: suppose we find them still together?’

‘No need to fear that,’ said the Count. ‘The Baroness is expecting me. By this time she is certain to be in her room, and alone.’

‘There is no difficulty about it otherwise,’ Eduard replied. He took a lamp and lighted the Count down a secret stairway into a long corridor. At the end of it Eduard opened a little door. They went up a spiral staircase. At the top they arrived at a narrow landing and, giving the Count the lamp, Eduard pointed out to him a door to the right papered over so as to look like the wall. The door opened at the first attempt and admitted the Count and left Eduard standing in the dark.

Another door to the left led into Charlotte’s bedroom. He heard voices, and listened. Charlotte was speaking to her maid: ‘Has Ottilie gone to bed yet?’ – ‘No,’ the maid answered, ‘she is still downstairs writing.’ – ‘Light the night-light then,’ said Charlotte, ‘and go off now. It is late.