Since his gambling adventure I had often seen Z----ki. The disaster and my attempts to minimise the consequences had undoubtedly drawn us closer together. After a dinner at the ‘Empress of Austria,’ he proposed to take me to a ball which had recently been established in a newly-erected, magnificent building, called the Apollo Hall. In a few moments we were on our way thither. Everything projected at that period in Vienna bore the grand stamp worthy of the time and of the guests intended to be honoured. In spite of this, to convey anything like an accurate idea of the beauty of the new establishment would require a writer capable of reproducing some of the chapters of the _Arabian Nights_, which delighted our youth. The Apollo Hall, the work of M. Moreau, the French architect, is, no doubt one of the most curious constructions of the capital of Austria. The interior, occupying an enormous space, contained sumptuous galleries and halls like those of a palace, and was practically in keeping with the noble and tasteful proportions of the outside. Emerging from these galleries, one came gently upon the rustic arbours of a garden, and from these upon a Turkish kiosk, and further on still upon a Lapland hut. Gravelled walks, bordered by magnificent greensward planted with roses and fragrant plants, lent throughout a most charming variety. In the centre of the huge supper-room, there was an immense rock, whence, from among flowers, there sprang a fall of natural water into basins teeming with various kinds of fish. Every style of architecture had its ordained part in this huge space, and everything calculated to please the eye had been brought to bear upon the enhancing of these styles; such as, for instance, the glint of innumerable candles on thousands of different-coloured crystal sconces. Farther on, the whole became chastened by alabaster lamps shedding their gentle light, and inviting the more reposeful guests. And while without the snow covered the earth, within spring seemed to have come once more, bringing the most delightful scent of its earliest harbingers.