away into caskets like old silver. Ãkos Ãlmos-Dreamer, father of the newly-dead Andor, had unsuspectingly married her in the 1840s. He became the third husband of a woman widowed first by a colonel then by a high-ranking government official.
Evelineâs former husbands met identical fates on the dueling ground; in those days this was a legitimate exit for men. The Colonelâs heart was pierced by an épée, after an excruciating fit of jealousy inspired him to challenge an itinerant Frenchman whose only known occupation was kibitzing at the faro table and fleecing tipsy swine dealers playing billiards at the Turkish Sultan. This dubious foreigner had eyes for a Parisian dancer who happened to be a guest artist at the National Theatre. In the evenings he would leave the gambling casino to stand like a statue with arms crossed during performances, as it happens, just below the box reserved, on alternate days, by Colonel Sükray. The dancer appeared as an entrâacte between the second and third acts when she hovered, fairylike, over the stage, performing a dance of her own choreography, with superhuman grace.
âMadame, I adore you,â sighed the statue beneath the railing of Colonel Sükrayâs box, and, doing so, he happened to fix on the Colonelâs wife the blazing torch of his eyesâeyes that were actually bestowed upon him by the Creator for the express purpose of keeping tabs on the legerdemain of one Buzinkai (a notorious local cardsharp) so that in the case of a successful deception he should imperceptibly yet significantly tap the gamblerâs shoulder.
The Colonel had heard the Frenchmanâs words only too clearly. One look at his wifeâs beaming face was enough to turn his suspicions into the darkest despair, even though at home, in the privacy of their canopied bed, they had frequently made fun of the eccentric Frenchman so hopelessly in love with the untouchable star of the stage.
Sükray was a nobleman and an officer. Speaking in an undertone he requested his wife to leave quietly with him before the hall lit up again in all its splendor at the end of the show. During the fairyâs dance the entire house was plunged into total darkness, to the great delight of the local heartbreakers who made use of this interval to pass love notes or whisper sweet nothings in their chosen onesâ ears without being observed.
Eveline, shaken, grasped her husbandâs arm as he led her to the back of the loge. As soon as she was outside the door, the Colonel turned around and with a light gesture tossed his white glove, crumpled into a ball, into the face of the French chevalier who stood with his customary stillness below the box. At the touch of the glove the chevalier staggered as if hit by a poleax. The blood left his face; he lowered his eyelashes in pain. Being the most ill-fated lover in town, he was desperate. His face resumed its everyday devil-may-care expression only when the door closed behind Eveline and the Colonel, making any further histrionics unnecessary.
A decade earlier or later the Colonel would have handed over the fly-by-night Frenchman to the military or the municipal authorities for incarceration until the next transport of vagrants. But this happened at the height of a Romantic era when the salons were seething with daily tales about the generosity and self-sacrifice of men in love. Women fell for heroic characters of the stage and many a lady in the capital felt an urge to elope with the first dance instructor or musician she encountered.
Therefore the next afternoon the Colonel acknowledged without comment when the Frenchmanâs two cronies, birds of a feather, asserted that the impudent dandy he had insulted the previous night at the theater happened to be a French nobleman, a descendant of Saint Louis, dispossessed of his rank and estates by the French Revolution...A routine claim of the French gamblers and impostors who roamed the
Evelineâs former husbands met identical fates on the dueling ground; in those days this was a legitimate exit for men. The Colonelâs heart was pierced by an épée, after an excruciating fit of jealousy inspired him to challenge an itinerant Frenchman whose only known occupation was kibitzing at the faro table and fleecing tipsy swine dealers playing billiards at the Turkish Sultan. This dubious foreigner had eyes for a Parisian dancer who happened to be a guest artist at the National Theatre. In the evenings he would leave the gambling casino to stand like a statue with arms crossed during performances, as it happens, just below the box reserved, on alternate days, by Colonel Sükray. The dancer appeared as an entrâacte between the second and third acts when she hovered, fairylike, over the stage, performing a dance of her own choreography, with superhuman grace.
âMadame, I adore you,â sighed the statue beneath the railing of Colonel Sükrayâs box, and, doing so, he happened to fix on the Colonelâs wife the blazing torch of his eyesâeyes that were actually bestowed upon him by the Creator for the express purpose of keeping tabs on the legerdemain of one Buzinkai (a notorious local cardsharp) so that in the case of a successful deception he should imperceptibly yet significantly tap the gamblerâs shoulder.
The Colonel had heard the Frenchmanâs words only too clearly. One look at his wifeâs beaming face was enough to turn his suspicions into the darkest despair, even though at home, in the privacy of their canopied bed, they had frequently made fun of the eccentric Frenchman so hopelessly in love with the untouchable star of the stage.
Sükray was a nobleman and an officer. Speaking in an undertone he requested his wife to leave quietly with him before the hall lit up again in all its splendor at the end of the show. During the fairyâs dance the entire house was plunged into total darkness, to the great delight of the local heartbreakers who made use of this interval to pass love notes or whisper sweet nothings in their chosen onesâ ears without being observed.
Eveline, shaken, grasped her husbandâs arm as he led her to the back of the loge. As soon as she was outside the door, the Colonel turned around and with a light gesture tossed his white glove, crumpled into a ball, into the face of the French chevalier who stood with his customary stillness below the box. At the touch of the glove the chevalier staggered as if hit by a poleax. The blood left his face; he lowered his eyelashes in pain. Being the most ill-fated lover in town, he was desperate. His face resumed its everyday devil-may-care expression only when the door closed behind Eveline and the Colonel, making any further histrionics unnecessary.
A decade earlier or later the Colonel would have handed over the fly-by-night Frenchman to the military or the municipal authorities for incarceration until the next transport of vagrants. But this happened at the height of a Romantic era when the salons were seething with daily tales about the generosity and self-sacrifice of men in love. Women fell for heroic characters of the stage and many a lady in the capital felt an urge to elope with the first dance instructor or musician she encountered.
Therefore the next afternoon the Colonel acknowledged without comment when the Frenchmanâs two cronies, birds of a feather, asserted that the impudent dandy he had insulted the previous night at the theater happened to be a French nobleman, a descendant of Saint Louis, dispossessed of his rank and estates by the French Revolution...A routine claim of the French gamblers and impostors who roamed the
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