Moreover, he began at once with regrets that his family were absent, so
that he was not in housekeeping, and could not entertain anyone.
At a production of Emile Augier's _Le Fils de Giboyer_, at which
all the foreign diplomatists were present, he, too, turned up. While the
other diplomatists greeted each other silently with a nod, he made more
of the meeting than any one else did, went from place to place in the
stalls, shook hands, spoke French, German, English and Italian by turns,
was all things to all men, then came and sat down by me, made himself
comfortable, and in a moment was fast asleep. When he began to snore,
one after another of his colleagues turned their heads, and smiled
faintly. He slept through two acts and the intervals between them, in
spite of the voices from the stage and the loud talking between the
acts, and woke up in the middle of the third act, to mumble in my ear,
"It is not much pleasure to see the piece played like this."
At my favourite restaurant, _Trattoria dell'antiche carrozze_, I
was one day witness to a violent dispute between a Polish noble who, for
political reasons, had fled from Russian Poland, and Hans Semper, a
Prussian, author of a book on Donatello. The latter naturally worshipped
Bismarck, the former warmly espoused the cause of Denmark.
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