Have you no musicians among your train, prince, that might regale our ears while we inhale the fragrance of your orange-trees ?" "An excellent thought!" said the prince.

"Mascari, see to the music." The party rose simultaneously to adjourn to the garden; and then, for the first time, the effect of the wine they had drunk seemed to make itself felt.
With flushed cheeks and unsteady steps they came into the open air, which tended yet more to stimulate that glowing fever of the grape.
As if to make up for the silence with which the guests had hitherto listened to Zanoni, every tongue was now loosened,--every man talked, no man listened.

There was something wild and fearful in the contrast between the calm beauty of the night and scene, and the hubbub and clamour of these disorderly roysters.

One of the Frenchmen, in especial, the young Duc de R--, a nobleman of the highest rank, and of all the quick, vivacious, and irascible temperament of his countrymen, was particularly noisy and excited.

And as circumstances, the remembrance of which is still preserved among certain circles of Naples, rendered it afterwards necessary that the duc should himself give evidence of what occurred, I will here translate the short account he drew up, and which was kindly submitted to me some few years ago by my accomplished and lively friend, Il Cavaliere di B--.
"I never remember," writes the duc, "to have felt my spirits so excited as on that evening; we were like so many boys released from school, jostling each other as we reeled or ran down the flight of seven or eight stairs that led from the colonnade into the garden,--some laughing, some whooping, some scolding, some babbling.