As the Hereditary Grand Duke's adjutant, he had scarcely
anything to do except to continue to compose his long love-poem, and add
verse after verse. At thirty he resigned from active service, which had
never been active for him, and became manager of the court stage. His
brief love-conflicts and easy victories now had another scene for
display. After the society of the court the dramatic arts: dancing,
singing, acting without choice, or rather with the choice indued by the
desire for beauty, and--change. The years elapsed like a series of
pictures from the fairy-tale of Prince Charming. They formed a frieze of
bewitching groups in all the attitudes which express wooing and granting,
languishing and triumphing. Each year was a Decameron, each month a
sensuous Florentine tale, with a woman's name for title and contents.
What a retrospect! His past life resembled a dream whose details blended
indistinctly with one another, leaving only a confused recollection of
sighs, kisses, and tears, melting eyes, half-parted lips, and loosened
tresses, a memory as deliciously soft as a warm, perfumed bath, in whose
caressing waters, in a chamber lit by a rose-hued lamp, one almost
dissolves, and yields with thoughts half merging into slumber.
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