During dinner the princess was very gay:  she paid more attention to Abbe Miollens than to Count Larinski; she took pleasure in teasing the good priest—­in endeavouring to shock him a little.  It was not easy to shock him; to his natural, easy good-nature he united an innate respect for grandeurs and for princesses.  She did not neglect so good an opportunity to air her monkey-development theories.  He merrily flung back the ball; he declared that he should prefer to be a fallen angel rather than a perfected monkey; that in his estimation a parvenu made a much sorrier figure in the world than the descendent of an old family of ruined nobility.  She replied that she was more democratic than he.  “It is pleasant to me,” said she, “to think that I am a progressive ape, who has a wide future before him, and who, by taking proper pains, may hope to attain new advancement.”

While they were thus chatting, Samuel Brohl was striving with all his might to recover from the terrible blow he had received.  He noted with keen satisfaction that the eyesight of the princess was considerably impaired; that the microscopic studies, for which she had always had a taste, had resulted in rendering her somewhat near-sighted; that she was obliged to look out carefully to find her way among her wine-glasses.  “She has not seen me for six years,” thought he, “and I have become a different man, I have undergone a complete metamorphosis; I have difficulty sometimes in recognising myself.  Formerly, my face was close-shaven, now I have let my entire beard grow.  My voice, my accent, the poise of my head, my manners, the expression of my countenance, all are changed; Poland has entered my blood—­I am Samuel no longer, I am Larinski.”  He blessed the microscope, which enfeebled the sight of old women; he blessed Count Abel Larinski, who had made of him his twin brother.  Before the end of the repast he had recovered all his assurance, all his aplomb.  He began to take part in the conversation:  he recounted in a sorrowful tone a sorrowful little story; he retailed sundry playful anecdotes with a melancholy grace and sprightliness; he expressed the most chivalrous sentiments; shaking his lion’s mane, he spoke of the prisoner at the Vatican with tears in his voice.  It were impossible to be a more thorough Larinski.

The princess manifested, in listening to him, an astonished curiosity; she concluded by saying to him:  “Count, I admire you; but I believe only in physiology, and you are a little too much of a Pole for me.”

After they had left the table and repaired to the salon, several callers dropped in.  It was like a deliverance to Samuel.  If the society was not numerous enough for him to lose himself in it, at least it served him as a shield.  He held it for a certainty that the princess had not recognised him; yet he did not cease feeling in her presence unutterably ill at ease.  This Calmuck visage of hers recalled to him all the miseries, the shame, the hard, grinding slavery of his youth; he could not look at her without feeling his brow burn as though it were being seared with a hot iron.