_Fortunio_ of
attraction in my eyes. Such faint glimmerings of it as there are are
confined to two very minor characters:--one of the courtesans, Cinthia,
a beautiful statuesque Roman, who has simplified the costume-problem by
wearing nothing--literally nothing--except one of two dresses, one black
velvet and the other white watered silk; and the "Count George" (we are
never told his surname), who gives the overture-orgie. One might, as the
lady said to Professor Wilson in regard to the _Noctes_, say to him, "I
really think you eat too many oysters, and drink too much [not indeed in
his case] whisky," and I can find no excuse for his deliberately
upsetting an enormous bowl of flaming arrack punch on a floor swept by
women's dresses. But he is quite human, and he makes the best speech and
scene in the book when he remonstrates with Musidora for secluding
herself because she cannot discover the elusive marquis-rajah
tiger-keeper,--and, I fear I must add, "tiger" himself,--from whom the
thing takes its title.[211]

[Sidenote: And others.]

It is, however, almost worth while to go through the freak-splendours
and transformation-scene excitements of _Fortunio_ to prepare the
palate[212] to enjoy _La Toison d'Or_ which follows. Here is once more
the true Gautieresque humour, good humour, marvellous word-painting, and
romance, agreeably--indeed charmingly--twisted together. There is no
fairy-story transposed into a modern and probable key which surpasses
this of the painter Tiburce; and the disorderly curios of his rooms; and
his sudden and heroic determination to fall desperately in love with a
blonde; and his setting off to Flanders to find one; and the
fruitlessness of his search and his bewitchment with the Magdalen in the
"Descent from the Cross" at Antwerp (ah! what has become of it?); and
his casual discovery and courtship of a girl like that celestial
convertite; and her sorrow when she finds that she is only a substitute;
and her victory by persuading her lover to paint her _as_ the Magdalen
and so work off the witchery.[213] Of course some one may shrug
shoulders and murmur, "Always the _berquinade_?" But I do not think _La
Morte Amoureuse_ was a _berquinade_.

[Sidenote: Longer books, _Le Capitaine Fracasse_ and others.]

Of Gautier's longer books it is not necessary to say much, because, with
perhaps one exception, they are admittedly not his forte.[214] Of the
longest, _Le Capitaine Fracasse_, I am myself ver