In the midst of all this Reitzei alone sat apart and silent.  Ever since coming into the room the attention of Beratinsky had been monopolized by his neighbor, who had just come back from a great artistic fete in some German town, and who, dressed as the Emperor Barbarossa, and followed by his knights, had ridden up the big staircase into the Town-hall.  The festivities had lasted for a fortnight; the Staatsweinkeller had furnished liberal supplies; the Princess Adelheid had been present at the crowning ceremony.  Then he had brought with him sketches of the various costumes, and so forth.  Perhaps it was inadvertently that Beratinsky so grossly neglected his guest.

The susceptible vanity of Reitzei had been deeply wounded before he entered, but now the cup of his wrath was filled to overflowing.  The more champagne he drank—­and there was plenty coming and going—­the more sullen he became.  For the rest, he had forgotten the circumstance that he had already drunk two glasses of brandy before his arrival, and that he had eaten nothing since mid-day.

At length Beratinsky turned to him.

“Will you have a cigar, Reitzei?”

Reitzei’s first impulse was to refuse to speak; but his wrongs forced him.  He said, coldly,

“No, thanks; I have already been offered a cigar by the gentleman next me.  Perhaps you will kindly tell me how one, being sober, had any need to pretend to be sober?”

Beratinsky stared at him.

“Oh, you are thinking about that yet, are you?” he said, indifferently; and at this moment, as his neighbor called his attention to some further sketches, he again turned away.

But now the souls of the sons of the Fatherland, warmed with wine, began to think of home and love and patriotism, and longed for some more melodious utterances than this continuous guttural clatter.  Silence was commanded.  A handsome young fellow, slim and dark, clearly a Jew, ascended the platform, and sat down at the piano; the bashful Hempel, still blushing and laughing, was induced to follow; together they sung, amidst comparative silence, a duet of Mendelssohn’s, set for tenor and barytone, and sung it very well indeed.  There was great applause, but Hempel insisted on retiring.  Left to himself, the young man with the handsome profile and the finely-set head played a few bars of prelude, and then, in a remarkably clear and resonant voice, sung Braga’s mystical and tender serenade, the “Legende Valaque,” amidst a silence now quite secured.  But what was this one voice or that to all the passion of music demanding utterance?  Soon there was a call to the young gentleman to play an accompaniment; and a huge black-a-vised Hessian, still sitting at the table, held up his brimming glass, and began, in a voice like a hundred kettle-drums,

    “Ich nehm’ mein Glaschen in die Hand:” 

then came the universal shout of the chorus, ringing to the roof,