"Low-Bramaputric, _mon cher_. Your health, doctor!" The more the meal approached its end, and the quicker the servants filled the ever-empty champagne glasses, the noisier and coarser became the conversation, so that it drowned even the voice of Count Grieben, which had heretofore been heard as distinctly as the screeching of a parrot in a menagerie. The thin varnish of outer culture, which constituted the whole so-called refinement of this privileged class, began to give way under the influence of streams of wine which were incessantly poured over it. The sight was a frightful one; naked, wretched nature lay open. The young men told the young ladies their adventures in hunting, at the races, their heroic deeds while they were in the army, or they were pleased to converse in a manner which they meant to be airy and witty, but which was heavy and coarse in the eyes of every well-bred woman. Unfortunately, however, the young ladies seemed to be but too well accustomed to this kind of conversation to feel any unpleasant effect. On the contrary, they allowed themselves to be forced to drink one glass of champagne after another; they were dying with laughter at the odd notions of some of the young men, and especially of young Count Grieben, a very tall, very thin, and very blond youth, whose appearance reminded one irresistibly of a giraffe. Oldenburg seemed himself to worship Bacchus more zealously than usual, or at least to take special pleasure in increasing the Bacchanalian tumult around him; he drank and talked incessantly, and urged others continually to drink. He did this especially with Cloten, who, at the beginning, frightened by Hortense's reproaches, had kept very quiet and looked embarrassed, but who had no sooner emptied a bottle than he forgot all the precaution which his lady-love had impressed upon him as absolutely necessary, and now replied to her reproachful looks with fiery glances, and to her whispered: "But, Arthur, have a care what you are doing," with an almost audible: "But, child, what do you mean; nobody sees us." The young nobleman carried his imprudence so far that he once, when picking up Hortense's napkin, kissed her hand, and at another time exchanged her glass for his; in short, he took every means to let the world know what they had heretofore but vaguely suspected. "I am going immediately after this is over," said Melitta to Oswald, who had for the last quarter of an hour spoken almost exclusively to Emily von Breesen, his left-hand neighbor. "I wish you had never come, or left me at home," said the young man, bitterly. "Scold me?" said Melitta, and her lips trembled with pain. "Ah, Oswald, I wish you could come with me, and forever!" "Perhaps Baron Oldenburg will permit us," replied Oswald, who had noticed how the baron's gray eyes continually watched Melitta and himself, while he seemed to devote himself altogether to little Miss Klaus.