Otto and Gondremark and Ratafia, and the state itself, hung light in her balances, as light as dust; her little finger laid in either scale would set all flying: and she hugged herself upon her huge preponderance, and then laughed aloud to think how giddily it might be used.

The vertigo of omnipotence, the disease of Caesars, shook her reason.

'O the mad world!' she thought, and laughed aloud in exultation.
A child, finger in mouth, had paused a little way from where she sat, and stared with cloudy interest upon this laughing lady.

She called it nearer; but the child hung back.

Instantly, with that curious passion which you may see any woman in the world display, on the most odd occasions, for a similar end, the Countess bent herself with singleness of mind to overcome this diffidence; and presently, sure enough, the child was seated on her knee, thumbing and glowering at her watch.
'If you had a clay bear and a china monkey,' asked Von Rosen, 'which would you prefer to break ?' 'But I have neither,' said the child.
'Well,' she said, 'here is a bright florin, with which you may purchase both the one and the other; and I shall give it you at once, if you will answer my question.