During the illusion and the embrace, at a nod from the Prince, all twigs and gates of the garden were involved in a glistening conflagration; all water-works of the enchanted wood started up, and fluttered aloft with golden wings; in the inverted rain played a white, green, golden, and gloomy world, and the jets of water and of flame flew up mischievously against each other, like silver and gold pheasants. And the splendor of the burning Eden embraced the Temple of Dream, and the reflection fell on its inner green foliage-work, and turned it to gold. Liana, holding the hand of the admiring Princess, stepped out, with downcast, bashful eyes, into the bright, busy city of the sun, into the din of the music and of the exultant spectators. Upon Albano the stormy scene came shooting like a torrent; such opposite and strangely intermingled parts played before such opposite persons, the splendor of the evening's gladness, and the nightly bewilderment in his bosom, made it hard for him to walk through this evening with a firm step. The Princess soon drew him onward in her wake and vortex; Liana she let not go from her side. The Minister daubed and starched up with old gallantries the erotic slave; but to every one he appeared, as the Princess settles with creditors after the death of the Prince, to imitate only the manner of ministers, whose spirit loves to proceed from Father and Dauphin--_filioque_[12]--at once, in order to seat itself, not between, but upon two princely chairs. She seemed, however, since his manœuvring with Liana, to receive him more haughtily. He was sufficiently blessed in the good fortune of his daughter, as his step-son Bouverot was by her nearness, and this pair of knaves lay deeply buried and revelling in nothing but flowers. Albano could divine nothing more than that even a cold dragon, an orang-outang of souls, was darkly spying out the charms of this angel. The Minister's lady and the Lector took turns, with an easy alternation, in guarding Liana from every word--of Albano. The Princess let herself be conducted through the sparkling pleasure-avenues, through the enchanted wood which was standing in moist lightnings, and finally to the thunder-house, by way of taking the burning garden from all points into her picturesque eye; Liana and Albano attended her through all the walks of her withered, stale Arcadia, and held their shattered hearts mutely and steadfastly together. True to her word with her parents, she gave him no warmer look or tone than any other, but no colder one neither; for her soul would not torment, but only suffer and obey. He made--he thought--all his looks and tones gentle, nor did the noble man avenge himself by a single manifestation of coldness, or in fact of any insincere making-of-friends with the princely female-recruiting-officer of crowns and hearts.