Seated in obedience to the orders I had received, we found ourselves
exactly opposite "le Prince," who had, of course, on his right and
left, the two ladies of highest rank. The table was very richly
ornamented, and it was quite delightful to observe at a glance what
probably in mathematics, or even in philosophy, it might have been
rather troublesome to explain--namely, the extraordinary difference
which existed between forty or fifty ladies and gentlemen standing in
a parallelogram in a drawing-room, and the very same number and the
very same faces, rectilinearly seated in the very same form in a
dining-room. It was the difference between sterility and fertility,
between health and sickness, between joy and sorrow, between winter
and summer; in fact, between countenances frozen into Lapland
formality and glowing with tropical animation and delight. Everybody's
mouth had apparently something kind to say to its neighbour's eyes;
and the only alloy was that, as each person had two neighbours, his
lips, under a sort of _embarras des richesses_, occasionally found it
rather difficult to express all that was polite and pleasing to both.'
Dinner being over, all returned to the drawing-room in the same formal
order.
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