He only understood what was identical with himself, his mother, whose pure, brilliant reflection he was; God, of whom he had a strange conception, appropriate to his particular kind of mind, and finally the vision of a woman whom he had created in his own image, whom he had not yet met, but would love one day.

All else only existed for him in a kind of wearisome dream from which he tried to escape by living alone in the midst of the world Forever lost in his reveries, he had no sense of reality. As a child, he could not go near a sharp instrument without cutting himself, when he grew up he could not face a man different from himself without coming into painful collision with this living contradiction of himself.

What saved him from perpetual antagonism was the deliberate and later confirmed habit of not seeing or hearing anything which broadly displeased him. People who did not think as he did became like phantoms to him and as he was always charmingly polite, the cold disdain or even unconquerable aversion he really felt could be easily mistaken for courtesy and amiability.

It is very strange that with such a character the young prince could have any friends at all. Yet he did have some, not only his mother’s who esteemed him as the worthy son of a noble man, but also young men of his own age, who loved him ardently and who thought themselves loved by him. He himself thought he loved them greatly, but it was with his imagination rather than his heart. He possessed a high conception of friendship, and at the age of youth’s illusions he was apt to think that his friends and he, reared in the same manner and with the same principles, would never change their opinions and would never reach a situation in which they would find themselves in positive disagreement.

This did happen, however, and at twenty-four, which was his age when his mother died, he had already grown weary of nearly all of them. One only had remained very faithful to him, and that was a young Italian, somewhat older than himself, noble of features and generous of heart; ardent, enthusiastic. Very different in all other aspects from Karol, he had at least two things in common with him, namely, a passionate love for beauty in art and a devotion to the knightly ideal of loyalty. This friend it was who dragged him away from his mother’s grave and carried him off to the bracing skies of Italy. Here, introduced by this friend, the prince saw Madame Floriani for the first time.

2.

You may indeed ask “Who is this Madame Floriani twice mentioned in the previous chapter, yet without moving a single step in her direction?”

I beg my reader to be patient. Just as I am about to knock at my heroine’s door I realise that I have not yet made you sufficiently acquainted with my hero and that there are still certain tedious facts which I must ask you to accept.

There is nobody with a greater sense of urgency and impatience than the reader of novels; but that is a matter of indifference to me. I have a complete man to reveal to you, that is, a world, an ocean boundless in its contradictions, diversities, heights and depths, logic and inconsistency, and you expect a single small chapter to be sufficient for that! By no means. I cannot do justice to it without entering into some detail and I shall take my time. If this wearies you, omit, and if, later, you make nothing of his behaviour, the fault will be yours, not mine.

The man whom I introduce to you is himself, and no other. I cannot make you understand him by telling you that he was young, handsome, well proportioned and well bred. All heroes in novels are so, and mine is a being whom I know thoroughly in my thoughts since, whether he is real or fictitious, I am attempting to portray him. He has a very specific character and one cannot apply to the instincts of a man the standard words used by naturalists to describe the perfume of a plant or a mineral by saying that this being exhales an aroma sui generis.

This sui generis explains nothing and I maintain that Prince de Roswald possessed a character sui generis which it is possible to explain.

In consequence of his good education and his natural grace, he was so affectionate externally, that he had the gift of pleasing even those who did not know him well His charming face predisposed one in his favour; his physical frailty made him interesting in the eyes of women; the richness and ease of his intellectual gifts, the suave and attractive originality of his conversation, won him the attention of educated men. As for those of lesser metal, they liked his exquisite politeness and they were all the more appreciative of it as they could not imagine, in their simple goodheartedness, that he was merely performing a duty and that sympathy did not enter into it at all.

Had people been able to penetrate his character they would have said that he was more lovable than loving and as far as they were concerned this would have been the truth. But how could they have guessed it when his rare attachments were so intense, so deep and so unshakable?

And so he was always loved if not with the certainty, at least with the hope of some return of affection. His young companions when they saw him feeble and lethargic in the performance of physical exercises, did not dream of despising this rather frail person, because Karol did not set great store by his own performance in this respect When he sat down quietly on the grass, in the midst of their games, he would say to them with a sad smile, “Enjoy yourselves, dear friends, I can neither wrestle nor run. You will come and rest by my side,” and as the strong are the natural protectors of the weak, it sometimes happened that the sturdiest generously abandoned their energetic sport to come and keep him company.

Among all those who were fascinated and as it were spellbound by the poetic colouring of his thoughts and the grace of his mind Salvator Albani was the most steadfast This excellent young man was frankness itself yet Karol exercised such influence over him that he dared not contradict him openly, even when he observed exaggeration in his principles and eccentricity in his behaviour. He was afraid of displeasing him and seeing him grow cool towards him, as had happened to so many others. He tended him like a child when Karol, not so much ill as highly strung and over-sensitive, withdrew to his room to conceal his indisposition from his mother’s eyes, because it distressed her too much. Thus Salvator Albani had become necessary to the young prince. And Salvator sensed this, so that when youth and its passions urged him to amuse himself elsewhere he sacrificed his pleasures or hid them from his friend, saying to himself that if Karol happened to cease loving him, he would no longer tolerate his attentions and would decline into a solitude, deliberate and fatal.

So Salvator loved Karol on account of the need the latter had of him and, out of a strange kind of pity, he became the flatterer of his theories, however wrong-headed and extravagant He admired stoicism with him, though fundamentally he was what is known as an epicurean. Tired by some escapade of the previous night he would read an ascetic volume kept by his bedside. He became innocently enthusiastic when his young friend depicted the sole, exclusive, undying, limitless love which was to fill his life. He regarded that as truly magnificent, and yet he himself could not live without love affairs and had to hide the number of his adventures from Karol.

This innocent pretence could only continue for a limited time, and Karol gradually discovered with sorrow that his friend was no saint But by the time he learned the painful truth, Salvator had become so necessary to him and he had been obliged to recognise in him so many outstanding qualities of mind and heart, that he would do nothing but continue to love him, to be sure much less than before, but still sufficiently not to be able to dispense with him. However, he could never reconcile himself to the youthful escapades of his friend and his affection for him, instead of alleviating his habitual sadness became as painful as an open wound.

Salvator, who feared the sternness of Princess de Roswald even more than that of Karol, concealed from her as long as possible what Karol had discovered with so much horror. The long painful illness to which she finally succumbed also contributed towards making her less clear-sighted during the last years of her life; and when Karol saw her cold on her deathbed, he fell into such overwhelming despair that Salvator resumed all his influence over him and was the only being capable of making him abandon the intention of allowing himself to die.

This was the second time that Karol saw death strike down someone close to him.