 Alkan was not always remote or aloof . Chopin describes , in a letter to friend , visiting the theatre with Alkan in 1847 to see the comedian <unk> : " [ <unk> ] tells the audience how he was desperate to <unk> in a train , but couldn 't get to a toilet before they stopped at <unk> . There wasn 't a single vulgar word in what he said , but everyone understood and split their sides laughing . " Hugh Macdonald notes that Alkan " particularly enjoyed the patronage of Russian aristocratic ladies , ' des <unk> <unk> <unk> et <unk> [ highly <unk> and frilled ladies ] ' , as Isidore Philipp described them . " 
