greatest importance. Only Filippo, Marianina, Madame de Lanty, and an
old servant enjoyed the privilege of assisting the unknown to walk, to
rise, to sit down. Each one of them kept a close watch on his
slightest movements. It seemed as if he were some enchanted person
upon whom the happiness, the life, or the fortune of all depended. Was
it fear or affection? Society could discover no indication which
enabled them to solve this problem. Concealed for months at a time in
the depths of an unknown sanctuary, this familiar spirit suddenly
emerged, furtively as it were, unexpectedly, and appeared in the
salons like the fairies of old, who alighted from their winged dragons
to disturb festivities to which they had not been invited. Only the
most experienced observers could divine the anxiety, at such times, of
the masters of the house, who were peculiarly skilful in concealing
their feelings. But sometimes, while dancing a quadrille, the too
ingenuous Marianina would cast a terrified glance at the old man, whom
she watched closely from the circle of dancers. Or perhaps Filippo
would leave his place and glide through the crowd to where he stood,
and remain beside him, affectionate and watchful, as if the touch of
man, or the faintest breath, would shatter that extraordinary
creature. The countess would try to draw nearer to him without
apparently intending to join him; then, assuming a manner and an
expression in which servility and affection, submissiveness and
tyranny, were equally noticeable, she would say two or three words, to
which the old man almost always deferred; and he would disappear, led,
or I might better say carried away, by her. If Madame de Lanty were
not present, the Count would employ a thousand ruses to reach his
side; but it always seemed as if he found difficulty in inducing him
to listen, and he treated him like a spoiled child, whose mother
gratifies his whims and at the same time suspects mutiny. Some prying
persons having ventured to question the Comte de Lanty indiscreetly,