VI
On the next night after her performance, Eva had invited several friends to her house. She had danced the chief rôle in the new pantomime called “The Dryads,” and her triumph had been very great. She came home in a cloud of flowers. Later a footman brought in a basket heaped with cards and letters.
She sank into Susan’s arms, happy and exhausted. Every pore of her glowed with life.
Crammon said: “There may be insensitive scoundrels in the world. But I think it’s magnificent to watch a human being on the very heights of life.”
For this saying Eva, with graceful reverence, gave him a red rose. And the burning in his breast became worse and worse.
It had been agreed that Christian and Denis were to have a fencing bout. Eva had begged for it. She hoped not only to enjoy the sight, but to learn something for her own art from the movements of the two young athletes.
The preparations had been completed. In the round hall hung with tapestries, Christian and Denis faced each other. Eva clapped her hands and they assumed their positions. For a while nothing was heard except their swift, muffled, and rhythmical steps and the clash of their foils. Eva stood erect, all eye, drinking in their gestures. Christian’s body was slenderer and more elastic than the Englishman’s. The latter had more strength and freedom. They were like brothers of whom one had grown up in a harsh, the other in a mild climate; the one self-disciplined and upheld by a long tradition of breeding, the other cradled in tenderness and somewhat uncertain within. The one was all marrow, the other all radiance. In virility and passion they were equals.
Crammon was in the seventh heaven of enthusiasm.
When the combat was nearly at an end, Cornelius Ermelang appeared, and with him Ivan Michailovitch Becker. Eva had asked Ermelang to read a poem. He and Becker had known each other long, and when he had found the Russian walking to and fro near the gate he had simply brought him up. It was the first time that Ivan showed himself to Eva’s other friends.
Both were silent and sat down.