When the supper
became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta
and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian
ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_.
Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of
the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of
cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can
convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris,
the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love
flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter,
impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man
lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a
declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the
tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if
terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate
perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is
said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious
reflections concerning the future.
"'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself.
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