where the ball is being held, becoming increasingly gloomy at the callowness of the young men, the boredom in the older men, and the silliness of the girls. The Prince notices Tancredi and Angelica dancing happily together, oblivious to the other's desperation, ambition and greed. As he watches, the Prince comes to realize and accept, if only for a moment, that whatever happiness the lovers feel is to be celebrated, no matter what. Angelica asks the Prince to dance with her. Flattered, he agrees to a waltz. They are a successful couple and dance well, with the Prince's memory flashing back to the days of his youth "when, in that very same ballroom, he had danced with the Princess before he knew disappointment, boredom and the rest". As the dance finishes, he realizes the other dancers have stopped and are watching them, his "leonine air" preventing the onlookers from bursting into applause. Angelica asks him to eat with her and Tancredi, and for a flattered moment he almost says yes, but then again remembers his youth and, recalling how embarrassing it would have been for him to have an old relative eating with him and a lover, politely excuses himself. The ball goes on until six in the morning. The Prince decides to walk home, alone with his thoughts. "Death of a Prince." July 1883 For years, the Prince has felt that he is dying, 'as if the vital fluid...life itself in fact and perhaps even the will to go on living, were ebbing out of him... as grains of sand cluster and then line up one by one, unhurried, unceasing, before the narrow neck of an hourglass'. A last-minute visit to a doctor has tired him so much that it is decided that he should not go back to the villa outside Palermo, but shall stay in a hotel inside the city itself. As he settles into the hotel, the Prince contemplates the fates of several of his family members — Tancredi's political success in the new Kingdom of Italy; and the deaths of Father Pirrone from old age, of Princess Maria from diabetes, and of Paolo after being thrown by a horse. He also recalls the maturation and dignity of Concetta who, he realizes, is the true heir of what was noble and enduring of the Salina family. He dismisses Paolo's son and biological heir, Fabrizietto, as dissolute,