The Russian Corps de Ballet at the Alhambra is an assemblage of charming and gifted people who are at last giving their admirers full measure. Now that they have a vast theatre of their own and perform three ballets every night the old frustrated feeling that used to tantalise us at the Opera and the Coliseum has vanished. But I have still a grievance, and that is that the programme is so rarely the programme that I myself would have arranged. In other words the three ballets that form it are seldom the Big Three that are nearest my heart. To be explicit, I want Petroushka, and instead I find myself not knowing where to look while Scheherazade unfolds its appalling freedoms; I want Les Sylphides, and instead am given Les Papillons, which is very lovely but not of an equal loveliness; and I want Carnaval, and instead am offered the perplexities of The Fire Bird. It happened, however, that one night recently the perfect programme was given—Carnaval, Les Sylphides and Petroushka; but there was not a seat in the house, and I therefore had to stand in great discomfort, so that half the joy evaporated.
"Meanwhile" (I seem to hear you say) "what of the hairdresser who has the same name as yourself and plies his trade next door but one? This story—which so far is a poor enough thing—was surely to have been about him." (So I seem to hear you say.)
Patience! It is about him, but it is also about the evils of procrastination. In short, it is a kind of tract.
On the morning after my disappointing evening at the Alhambra, while moving some papers on my desk, I brought to light the bill for the powder and the essences. "Good Heavens!" I murmured, "the poor fellow will be distracted not to have this;" and I took it in to him straightway.
I apologised for the delay.
"There is no hurry," he replied. "Accounts can wait; But I hope," he added, taking an envelope from a drawer, "that this letter for you is equally unimportant. It came, I'm afraid, four days ago, and I was always meaning to bring it in, but forgot."
Unimportant! It was merely an invitation from the most adorable woman in London to share her box at the Russian Ballet on the previous night, to see what she knew was my most desired performance, Carnaval, Les Sylphides and Pelroushka.
Either the hairdresser or I must move.
Or we must both take a course of memory training. I believe there is some system on the market.