It has been said with truth that the whole destiny of a life is decided in an instant. I immediately recognised the voice, which I had only heard once before. The strange and brilliant dream of a night was about to be reproduced a second time with all its former illusions. I did not know what to say; the liberty of speech, tacitly admitted under cover of a mask, only added to my confusion. ‘Have you nothing to say?’ asked the same voice. ‘Sweet mask,’ I replied, ‘the timid bird may sing at sunrise, only the eagle dare fixedly look at the sun in its zenith.’ Thereupon I endeavoured to get my two interlocutors out of the crowd, in order to be more free in the interview, which I felt was to decide the whole of my life, but Grand-Chamberlain Narischkine came up to us, recognised the ladies, took their arms and led them away. I had no longer any doubt. I had met once more the angel of a dream the realisation of which would not occur on earth. I remained rooted to the spot, then rushed after the dominos like a madman. I saw nothing, I heard nothing except the magic words that had gone to the core of my heart. My pursuit was in vain, the crowd had parted us for evermore. In one of the quadrangular rooms I came upon the Prince Cariati talking very animatedly to a lady disguised as a gipsy, who immediately revealed her _incognita_. It was the Comtesse Zamoyska, our neighbour on the Jaeger Zeill. ‘I wish you to join our plot,’ she said; ‘it ‘s a complicated piece of mystification, the sequel to an intrigue begun at one of these balls, which has lasted now for several weeks. The personage I wish to mystify is worthy of my attempt.’ Without knowing or caring much what I did, I fell in with the wish of the comtesse, who left us, laughing. I was getting weary of it all, when I noticed my friend M. Achille Rouen occupying a rout seat all by himself, and apparently as bored as I was. I asked him if he had seen the dominos of whom I was in search. ‘If you mean the two who were with Narischkine,’ he replied, giving me an exact description of them, ‘they left the ball a quarter of an hour ago.’ From that moment the charm of the evening seemed to have vanished, as far as I was concerned. We began chatting about the Congress and the current news, and as a matter of course the name of M. de Talleyrand cropped up. No other name was so often mentioned in people’s comments on the difficult and critical questions of the moment. Achille Rouen, who never missed a day without seeing him, was sincerely attached to him.