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Updated: September 22, 2025
His back was half-turned towards the corpse, and he did not seem to notice me in any way. I folded my arms, and as some relief from the uncanny and troublous thoughts which ran in my head I looked about me. I could not bring myself to gaze on the purple cloth which covered the remains of Alresca. We were alone the priest, Alresca, and I and I felt afraid.
Between whiles she related to Alresca all the news of their operatic acquaintances how this one was married, another stranded in Buenos Ayres, another ill with jealousy, another ill with a cold, another pursued for debt, and so on through the diverting category. "And Smart?" Alresca queried at length. I had been expecting and hoping for this question. "Oh, Sir Cyril! I have heard nothing of him.
The first act was over, and Rosetta Rosa stood at the footlights bowing before the rolling and thunderous storms of applause, her hand in the hand of Alresca, the Lohengrin. That I have not till this moment mentioned Alresca, and that I mention him now merely as the man who happened to hold Rosa's hand, shows with what absolute sovereignty Rosa had dominated the scene.
There is one thing about Alresca that makes me sometimes think he is not an artist at all he is incapable of being jealous. I have known hundreds of singers, and he is the one solitary bird among them of that plumage. No, it is not jealousy." "Then what is it?" "I wish I knew. He asked me to go and dine with him this afternoon. You know he dines at four o'clock. Of course, I went.
I had a sense of some sort of calamity. Alresca was flushed. He spoke in short, hurried sentences. Alternately his tones were passionate and studiously cold. Rosa's lovely presence, her musical chatter, her gay laughter, filled the room. She seemed to exhale a delightful and intoxicating atmosphere, which spread itself through the chamber and enveloped the soul of Alresca.
I glanced down at him, full of my affection for him, and minded to take advantage of the rights of that affection for once in a way. "Alresca," I said quietly. "Well?" "What was it?" "What was what?" I met his gaze. "What was that thing that you have fought and driven off? What is the mystery of it? You know you must know. Tell me." His eyelids fell. "Better to leave the past alone," said he.
It seems to me that Alresca was mistaken. His foe was not so implacable as Alresca imagined. Alresca having surrendered in the struggle between them, the ghost of Lord Clarenceux hesitated, and then ultimately withdrew its hateful influence, and Alresca recovered. Then Rosa came again into his existence that evening at Bruges.
Again I had the sensation of being victimized by a conspiracy of which this implacable man was the head. I endured once more the mental tortures which I had suffered in the railway carriage, and now, as then, I felt helpless and bewildered. It seemed to me that his existence overshadowed mine, and that in some way he was connected with the death of Alresca.
By this time I had a most genuine affection for Alresca. The rare qualities of the man his serenity, his sense of justice, his invariable politeness and consideration, the pureness of his soul had captured me completely. I was his friend. Perhaps I was his best friend in the world. The singular circumstances of our coming together had helped much to strengthen the tie between us.
My aim should be to cure Alresca, and then go soberly to Totnes and join my brother in practice. I turned down Oxford Street, whose perspective of gas-lamps stretched east and west to distances apparent infinite, and as I did so I suddenly knew that some one was standing by the railings opposite, under the shadow of the great trees.
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