"You are amazed at our little _fête_," said the princess, laughing. "Well, you will be yet more so, when you know that we three will sup together and will serve ourselves, as Von Kleist and I have already prepared everything. We set the table, lit the candles, and never were so amused. For the first time in my life, I dressed my hair and made my toilet, and it was never done better, at least in my opinion. We are going to amuse ourselves incognito. The king sleeps at Potsdam, the queen is at Charlottembourg, my sisters are with the queen mother at Montbijou, my brothers are I know not where, and none but ourselves are in the palace. I voted myself sick, and resolved to make use of the opportunity to live a little, and _fête_ you two (the only persons whom I can trust) on the escape of Trenck. We will, then, drink champagne to his health, and one of us must get tipsy. The others can keep the secret. Ah! the philosophic suppers of Frederick will be eclipsed by the splendor of this one!"
They sat down, and the princess appeared under a new aspect to the Porporina. She was good, kind, natural, joyous, beautiful as an angel, and, in a word, adorable as she had been in the first days of her youth. She seemed to float in pure, generous, disinterested bliss. Her lover was flying from her, she knew not if she would ever see him, yet this radiant being rejoiced at his flight.
"Ah! how happy I am between you," said she to her confidants, who formed with herself the most perfect trio of profane coquetry ever concealed from the eyes of man. "I am as free as Trenck. I feel as good as he is and always was. It seemed to me that the fortress of Glatz pressed on my soul at night, and swept over me like a nightmare. I was cold in my eider-bed when I thought of him on the damp pavement of the dark prison. I did not live. I could enjoy nothing. Ah! dear Porporina! imagine my horror, when I said, 'All this he suffers for me! My fatal love has cast him into a living tomb!' This idea changed my food into poison, like the gall of the harpies. Pour me out some champagne. Ah! it seems to me like ambrosia! The lights are smiling! the flowers smell sweetly! the dishes are delicate, and Von Kleist and yourself are beautiful as angels! Yes: I see, I hear, I breathe! I have been restored to life, from the statue, the carcass I was! Here, drink with me to the health of Trenck! and then to the health of the friend who escaped with him! Afterwards, we will drink to the kind keepers who let him fly! and then to my brother Frederick, who could not help it! No bitter thought shall trouble us this holiday. I have no animosity against anyone. I think I love the king. Here! 'To the health of the king!' Porporina! '_Vive le Roi!_'"