Count Albert was seated in the orchestra stalls with his mother. The Countess Styvens, widowed after five years, had bestowed upon her son all the affection she had cherished for her husband. She had never left him, but had had him educated under her own supervision, giving him at the age of nine, as tutor, a Jesuit who was one of the most austere, if also one of the most learned, of the Order. The young man was a perfect pupil, studious, ever disdaining the pleasures of his age. His childhood passed in the grey and pious atmosphere in which his mother steeped herself. His youth developed under the rule of his preceptor, a pale youth, without laughter, without aspirations. The physicians had never been able to persuade the Countess to let her son have the joy of travel of sea and mountain, so he had to be satisfied with the physical exercises she permitted. So he gave himself up to gymnastics with enthusiasm, expending his youthful vigour against his drill professor, and the Japanese who taught him jiu-jitsu. The boy's strength became quite remarkable. But his pale face, disproportionately long arms, and reputation for austerity, had made him the mark, from the very first days of his diplomatic career, for the gossips, ballad makers, and authors of questionable cabaret skits. The day he heard that he was serving as Turk's head in a Brussels music-hall, he went instantly behind the scenes of the theatre and demanded to see the Director, who was in conversation with the author of the piece. He went right up to them. "I," he said, raising his hat politely, "am Count Albert Styvens. I shall be very glad to have you suppress the scene, which, I understand, is intended to caricature me." The Manager, a prosperous brewer, who had become proprietor of a theatre for the pleasure of producing revues, which if not witty were certainly vulgar, shrugged his heavy shoulders. "You expect me to lose money! That act is one of the best we have got." "And you, sir?" Albert turned on the author, a man of doubtful reputation, always on the alert for any occasion of scandal in others. "Oh! of course I am sorry to offend you, but I can't take off the piece." The last word was not out of his mouth when the Count grabbed both of them by the napes of their necks and knocked their heads together till the blood spurted from their surprised faces. Their cries were heard even by the audience. Reporters came running to witness this unbilled spectacle. The stage hands tried to free the Manager, but desisted when one received a terrible smash from the Count's fist, and another a kick that sent him through space. When the two men were reduced to rags, Albert held them upright and addressed them: "I am going into the hall to see the show. I advise you to withdraw the scene we spoke of and to which I object."