The Tragic Comedians | Page 7

of a woman's name with
Alvan's, albeit the name of a veteran, roused the girl's curiosity, leading
her to think his mental and magnetic powers must be of the very
highest, considering his physical repulsiveness, for a woman of rank to
yield him such extreme devotion. She commissioned her princely
serving-man, who had followed and was never far away from her, to
obtain precise intelligence of this notorious Alvan.
Prince Marko did what he could to please her; he knew something of
the rumours about Alvan and the baroness. But why should his lady
trouble herself for particulars of such people, whom it could scarcely be
supposed she would meet by accident? He asked her this. Clotilde said
it was common curiosity. She read him a short lecture on the dismal
narrowness of their upper world; and on the advantage of taking an
interest in the world below them and more enlightened; a world where
ideas were current and speech was wine. The prince nodded; if she had
these opinions, it must be good for him to have them too, and he shared
them, as it were, by the touch of her hand, and for the length of time
that he touched her hand, as an electrical shock may be taken by one far
removed from the battery, susceptible to it only through the link; he
was capable of thinking all that came to him from her a
blessing--shocks, wounds and disruptions. He did not add largely to her
stock of items, nor did he fetch new colours. The telegraph wire was his
model of style. He was more or less a serviceless Indian Bacchus,
standing for sign of the beauty and vacuity of their world: and how
dismally narrow that world was, she felt with renewed astonishment at
every dive out of her gold- fish pool into the world of tides below; so
that she was ready to scorn the cultivation of the graces, and had, when
not submitting to the smell, fanciful fits of a liking for tobacco
smoke--the familiar incense of those homes where speech was wine.
At last she fell to the asking of herself whether, in the same city with
him, often among his friends, hearing his latest intimate
remarks--things homely redolent of him as hot bread of the oven--she
was ever to meet this man upon whom her thoughts were bent to the
eclipse of all others. She desired to meet him for comparison's sake,
and to criticize a popular hero. It was inconceivable that any one

popular could approach her standard, but she was curious; flame played
about him; she had some expectation of easing a spiteful sentiment
created by the recent subjection of her thoughts to the prodigious little
Jew; and some feeling of closer pity for Prince Marko she had, which
urged her to be rid of her delusion as to the existence of a
wonder-working man on our earth, that she might be sympathetically
kind to the prince, perhaps compliant, and so please her parents, be
good and dull, and please everybody, and adieu to dreams, good night,
and so to sleep with the beasts! . . .
Calling one afternoon on a new acquaintance of the flat table-land she
liked tripping down to from her heights, Clotilde found the lady in
supreme toilette, glowing, bubbling: 'Such a breakfast, my dear!' The
costly profusion, the anecdotes, the wit, the fun, the copious draughts
of the choicest of life--was there ever anything to match it? Never in
that lady's recollection, or her husband's either, she exclaimed. And
where was the breakfast? Why, at Alvan's, to be sure; where else could
such a breakfast be?
'And you know Alvan!' cried Clotilde, catching excitement from the
lady's flush.
'Alvan is one of my husband's closest friends'
Clotilde put on the playful frenzy; she made show of wringing her
hands: 'Oh! happy you! you know Alvan? And everybody is to know
him except me? why? I proclaim it unjust. Because I am unmarried? I'll
take a husband to-morrow morning to be entitled to meet Alvan in the
evening.'
The playful frenzy is accepted in its exact innocent signification of 'this
is my pretty wilful will and way,' and the lady responded to it cordially;
for it is pleasant to have some one to show, and pleasant to assist some
one eager to see: besides, many had petitioned her for a sight of Alvan;
she was used to the request.
'You're not obliged to wait for to-morrow,' she said. 'Come to one of
our gatherings to-night. Alvan will be here.'

'You invite me?'
'Distinctly. Pray, come. He is sure to be here. We have his promise, and
Alvan never fails. Was it not Frau v. Crestow who did us the favour of
our introduction? She will bring