And it really was a marvel! Delicately poised on the velvet, nestling amid the sombre curled feathers and lace and fixed in placed by a hat pin, was a Crown of Thorns made entirely of jet!

We were both entranced. Then with a gesture and a smile that seemed to exude yet more perfume and brilliance, Madame d’Oriol hurried off to La Madeleine.

My Prince paced thoughtfully and slowly up and down the carpet. Then, suddenly, straightening his back with a look of immense determination, as if he were shrugging off a whole world, he said:

‘Zé Fernandes, let’s spend this Sunday doing something simple and natural.’

‘What, for example?’

Jacinto looked about him, wide-eyed, as if anxiously scouring Universal Life for one natural, simple thing. Finally, he turned those same wide eyes on me, eyes that seemed to be returning, weary and rather hopeless, from some far distant place.

‘Let’s go to the Jardin des Plantes and see the giraffe!’

IV

One night during that same fecund week, we were on our way back from the Opera, when Jacinto announced with a yawn that there was to be a party at No. 202.

‘A party?’

‘In honour of the Grand Duke, poor soul. He’s going to send me a very rare and delicious fish which is only ever caught off the coast of Dalmatia. I’d have preferred a brief lunch myself, but the Grand Duke demanded a supper. He’s a barbarian at heart, steeped in the literature of the eighteenth century, a man who still believes in suppers – in Paris! So this Sunday, just to amuse him, I’ve invited a few ladies and ten or so typically Parisian gentlemen. You should come too. It will be like leafing through a list of the great and the good of Paris society. But it really is the most frightful bore!’

Since Jacinto was not himself looking forward to the party, he took few pains to make it a brilliant success. He merely ordered a gypsy orchestra (in those far-off days, Parisians were still excited by the sight of gypsies in their short scarlet jackets and by the harshly melancholic strains of the czardas, the Hungarian national dance), and, in his desire to cater for all tastes from the tragic to the picaresque, he arranged to have the Theatrephone in the Library linked up to the Opéra, the Comédie Française, the Alcazar and the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens. Later, on Sunday evening, we inspected the supper table, resplendent with Dom Galeão’s old dinner service. And the lavish profusion of orchids – for upon the silk-embroidered cloth whole forests of them had been arranged around the Saxe fruit bowls made of cut glass and filigree of gold – gave off such a refined sense of luxury and good taste, that I found myself murmuring: ‘God bless money!’ For the first time, too, I visited the abundantly and minutely equipped pantry, and admired, in particular, the two lifts that travelled up from the depths of the kitchen, one for fish and meat – heated by hot water pipes – and the other for salads and ices – lined with refrigerating panels. Ah, No. 202!

At nine o’clock, however, on my way down to Jacinto’s study to write a letter to my Aunt Vicência, while Jacinto remained at his dressing-table where the manicurist was engaged in polishing his nails, we experienced yet another fright in that delightful palace festively decked out with flowers! All the electric lights, throughout the whole of No. 202, suddenly went out! In my immense distrust of these universal forces, I immediately raced for the door, stumbling in the darkness and bleating a ‘Help! Help!’ that positively reeked of rustic Guiães. Up above, Jacinto, still in his pyjamas, was calling out too, while the manicurist clung fearfully to him. Then the lights slowly flickered on again, like a laggardly servant who appears only when summoned, dragging his slippers. Nevertheless, my ashen-faced Prince, who had come downstairs by then, gave orders to send for an engineer from the Central Company for Domestic Electricity, and, just in case, another servant was despatched to the grocery store to buy a few packets of candles, while Cricket disinterred from the cupboards the abandoned candelabra and heavy, archaic candlesticks from the unscientific days of Dom Galeão. These were the sturdy veteran reserve troops to be used in the awful eventuality that later, over supper, the inexperienced forces of Civilisation should again treacherously fail. The electrician, who arrived out of breath, assured us, however, that the Electricity would stand firm and throw no further tantrums. Ever cautious, I slipped two candle stubs into my pocket.

The Electricity did, indeed, stand firm and tantrum-free. And when I came down from my room (late, because I had lost my dress waistcoat, which I found, after a furious search and much cursing, fallen behind the bed!), the whole of No. 202 was aglow, and the gypsies in the antechamber – tossing their hair and furiously bowing their violins – were playing a waltz so irresistible that the larger-than-life characters in the tapestries on the walls – Priam, Nestor and sly Ulysses – were all lifting their venerable feet in time to the music and panting!

Tugging nervously at my shirt cuffs, I crept timidly, noiselessly into Jacinto’s study. I was greeted at once by the perennial smile of the Countess de Trèves, who, in company with the illustrious historian Danjon (of the Académie Française), was marvelling at my supercivilised Prince’s sumptuous collection of machines and instruments.