"Le Caprice a taillé son petit nez charmant...."
A little snub nose tip-tilted with an elegant impertinence. The charm of her smile was trebled by the dimples it made in her cheeks.
They did not fail to introduce me to a great number of people, whose names, few of them easy to remember, have escaped me. I recall that of Lenbach, the already illustrious painter, and I remember the beautiful head of Edward Schuré, with its inspired and slightly "absent" air.
The appearance of Franz Liszt astonished me.
I was evidently out of the running, I was ignorant of everything: why that long black cassock? Was he a priest? With that smooth-shaven face, had he also a tonsure in the locks that fell long and straight to his shoulders? But what eyes, like a lion, what burning glances under the shaggy eyebrows! What overmastering irony in the curves of the large mouth with its thin lips! In the whole attitude what majesty, tempered with benevolence.
The entrance of Liszt caused an extreme excitement in the assemblage, and I became more and more surprised. Could it be that he was a saint? They showed such an extraordinary veneration for him, especially the women. They hurried toward him, and almost kneeling, kissed his hands, raising looks of ecstasy to his face.
But my attention was suddenly drawn to a woman who had arrived at the same moment--surely this must be she, the mysterious beauty who came from the north, in a whirlwind of snow, and herself whiter than the snow. The lady with eyes like Parma violets, whom the poets have sung with such longing, the Countess of Kalergis, now Countess Muchanoff. _La Symphonie en blanc majeur_ herself in fact! As yet she was standing with her back to me, at the other side of the grand piano. People were crowding about her as she took their outstretched hands. She was tall, a muslin scarf covered her shoulders, her pale blond hair curled at the nape of her neck. I repeated under my breath some words from the well-known poem which she had inspired my father to write, so long ago:--
"Conviant la vue enivrée De sa boréale fraîcheur A des régals de chair nacrée, A des débauches de blancheur.
Son sein, neige moulée en globe, Contre les camélias blancs Et le blanc satin de sa robe Soutient des combats insolents.