The juggler

by Rachilde, 1860-1953

  She was alive, however, since she stopped in front of a

  mirror. She cast a curious glance, not looking at herself, but watching someone over her left shoulder.

  The anteroom was deserted. The mirror reflected only the marble statue of a nymph holding a candelabrum over there, and here, the dark silhouette of the motionless woman, equally a statue, two twins turning their back on each other, the one very naked, spreading cold in the transparent electric globes, the other magnificently dressed, even less real, and these mute phantoms aroused the idea of an imminent catastrophe.

  A door slammed; ceremonious voices burst out, chairs scraped, glasses clinked, once again, heavy silence.

  The somebody watched by the woman in black was following her.

  She began to descend the staircase without bothering to pick up her dress, as if no one were there, her arms inert, squeezed by her long gloves from wrist to elbow, ringing them with viperine folds, and her hands of mourning had the disconcerting look of natural hands.

  On the second landing, at the point where a second marble servant lifted her spray of light while smiling a white sugary smile, the black woman let out a cry, the light cry of someone nervous who is provoked, but without turning round: her dress had just pulled tight suddenly from the train to the neck, the whole fabric had stiffened into an iron bar and the decorous costume, the chaste sheath, detached itself bit by bit from the woman, giving her up to the electric lights more naked, despite her blackness, than the marble statue. Skirt and bodice floated on her. Nothing stuck properly to this human form, molded a moment ago in its silken scabbard. This hermetic dress, the collar of which bit at the chin with a velvety maw, opened out to snatch at the neck, did not protect her from the possibility of appearing beautiful.

  "Excuse me, madam!" said the voice of a man, hissing slightly.

  So she deigned to turn around, to smile with indifferent politeness, to pick up her train, with one sweeping gesture, like someone picking up the handle of a basket full of flowers.

  She was so supple, she bent over so quickly that, suddenly, one guessed she was younger, more animal, perhaps more lighthearted, capable of running. 1

  She raised her skirt, she raised her eyes; one could see her feet, hardly covered by an edging of leather that matched her gloves, naked and black feet in lace stockings; one could see her eyes, naked and black beneath a silky fringe of bits of fur.

  The man stopped hypnotized, short of breath.

  He had trodden on the skirt because he could see nothing but the woman.

  She continued, descended majestically, became serious once more.

  At the last landing and at the third marble servant, the cloakroom attendant gave her an evening wrap, an indescribable thing in which pearls clicked with sabre blades. Her frail black hands quickly got the better of the immense oriental stole; she draped herself with the few movements of a cat getting under the bedcovers, and very carefully veiled her lips, probably afraid of coughing.

  The man who had stopped up there reached the cloakroom attendant, asked for his overcoat, a simple overcoat of poor cloth, and he again mechanically followed the wake of luminous silks as they were swallowed by the night of the street after having masked the night of the woman.

  His destiny drove him after the black train. He would not go far, for he knew that she had her carriage, a low coupe, a small dark box in which the glittering toy would faint, return home abruptly, extinguish her magic glow. And that had been exasperating him for a long time.

  She always wore black: a serious woman.

  She had a discreet carriage: a rich woman.

  But she deployed, at the end of these monotonous official evenings, a violent stole, an adventurer's stole, like a firework. He would feel himself irresistibly drawn to a conquest that seemed possible, if not easy, then she would take off at the gallop of a great infernal horse, a legendary horse. 2

  He was not unaware of her name and address. She was called Madame Donalger, and lived in an old house in a new neighborhood, in the direction of the Trocadero.

  He knew her first name, too: Eliante. He found it quite ridiculous.

  . . . And charming!

  Someone had introduced him that very evening. Some gentleman muttering:

  "You should escort madam to the buffet. She doesn't want to go alone."

  Why? Did she never know anyone, then? And in escorting her to the buffet, in actually shivering with anxiety at feeling her so black, so closed up, he had said nothing to her.

  Once, at a certain Baronness d'Esmont's where he had slipped in, as always to follow her, he found her dance card under her chair, with cards, her own, and he finally read this first name: Eliante, and that made him sneer a little:

  "That's all I need! She's called Eliante." 3 '

  And still laughing to himself, he took a card, stole it, kept it, to reread it in the morning.

  "Who can she be, that woman?"

  It was not enough for him that it was a woman.

  Now he was hurrying into the street, not waiting for the end of the party, his head uncovered in the pouring rain.

  "It's raining. Damn it all!"

  Stuck in the middle of the sidewalk, not thinking to put on his crush-hat because he would have to unfasten the spring and he dreaded such a noisy complication, he cursed.

  The coupe was standing in front of him.

  She was getting into the carriage, arranging the black cascade of the dress, the multicolored waves of the coat, causing light, very white petticoats to gush out, like champagne bubbles.

  The man was shaking with rage.

  He felt such a strong desire to go up to her, such a brutal urge of instinct, that he took several more steps in spite of himself; he plunged his polished shoes into a mud puddle, reached the carriage door, put his hand on the handle, firmly resolved to prevent the horrible box from closing, to ravish its toy.

  At that very moment, the man was split, he wanted, on the one hand, quite frantically to look at her again and, on the other hand, he was mentally calling himself a fool, thinking that she would give him some spare change, as one does to street urchins who run up to the carriage windows.

  The woman drew aside the silk veiling her mouth, and she asked, quite naturally:

  "Would you like to get in, my dear sir?"

  Would he like to get in? Good heavens! His instinct alone answered. He bounded, settled into the dark silks, scattered the oriental lights, ravaged, with his muddy feet, the underlying foam, sat down and gestured in vexation:

  "Excuse me, madam! Please accept my apologies," he said, dazed by his own audacity, "I'm nothing but a fool, indeed. I step on your dress, I get into your carriage . . . I'm losing my head. What's more, I have a migraine, these evening dances aren't good for me. I beg you, excuse me, I'll get out."

  She burst out laughing, a very open laugh, very girlish, throwing her head back a little to hide the real expression of her gaiety.

  The coachman, perplexed, waited for an order.

  So she stifled the desire to laugh, put on the serious expression of a protective matron:

  "Drive on, Jean, drive on! I'm taking the gentleman home with me."

  And the carriage moved off, with the trot of a great infernal black horse, the black horse of the legends.

  Incredibly, they exchanged banalities during the journey.

  "What terrible rain!" murmured the woman, pulling at the end of her gloves, which gave her pointed claws. "You would think it was the flood; it's been going on for three days."

  "It's quite wretched weather. We're having an awful end of autumn."

  "Quite a fine affair, eh, for a charity ball? Very ingenious buffet decorations, those fountains of wine and those white bouquets. So you don't like dancing, sir?"

  "Me? I don't know how to dance." 4

  "You were at the Baronness d'Esmont's on Thursday. Yet it was a ball."

  "I went . . . without realizing."

  "You often go without realizing, d
on't you, sir?"

  And he tried to stare her down, to be bold, even to act as though he had struck lucky, only he felt paralyzed, made awkward, by the terror that he would be thrown peremptorily out of the carriage and the quite tenacious desire to remain before her, sitting on the end of her oriental stole.

  She murmured:

  "I left early because . . . I'm hungry. The buffet . . . very elegant, but did you get a close look at those sandwiches? Disgusting! Just bread and butter! They smelled of rancid ham. I'll have supper at home, I'll be better off."

  He grumbled:

  "I must seem extremely coarse, madam?"

  "Not at all, on the contrary. I'm sure you are a very well brought-up man, and that's why I'm inviting you to come and share my supper."

  "Madam, it would be more natural that I invite you."

  "Oh! That you invite me Admirable use of the subjunctive. No . . . don't you date do anything of the kind, I beg you, I would be hurt. I am quite entitled to receive you—I am yout eldet,—to treat you like a little boy in disgrace. You leave, without realizing, a very merry party, and I'm punishing you by taking you home to a lady in a sad mood." (She was laughing the whole time.) "I'm sad, you know, because I suffer."

  "Are you ill? What's the matter?"

  "I'm suffering . . . from spleen, because of the rain, because of the autumn." 5

  "I say, don't make fun."

  "I could be even more unkind. After all, have I asked you for your address?"

  "You saw me stealing one of your cards?"

  "You weren't very clever, you were doing it in front of everyone, sir."

  Violently, he snarled:

  "I'm not in love with you ... in case I look it! I'm not going to fall for any woman. No, never. You look like a curious object to me, and I find it amusing to look at you close up ... in the shop window. Don't want to touch . . . nor to buy, I assure you."

  A short silence fell like hail. The woman coughed lightly.

  "Buy?" she sighed. "Poor child!"

  He shuddered. She had said this in an emotional voice, deliciously maternal. The insult hardly touched her. She was feeling sorry for the very person who was trying out, on her, his brand new male cruelty.

  "You take me for a child. I'm of age, madam. I'm twenty-two years old."

  "And I, sir, am thirty-five."

  He clenched his fists, furious, without knowing why.

  "More like forty," he thought. 6

  "I'm not lying," she added, though he had said nothing.

  "You pass by, you look at me and I accept it. Admit that I would have the right to lie to you, if I wanted to."

  "Wait, madam, let me out. Let's go our separate ways, as befits people not made for each other. Only. . . . Prove to me that you are not a negress!"

  He forced a laugh.

  She took off her glove and held out her hand.

  It was a very small hand, and very powerful, in spite of its frail appearance, with thin fingers, short nails, slightly furrowed knuckles, a voluptuous palm that clung like a limpet, but this hand, without rings, flashed with whiteness, and exuded a penetrating perfume, a peppery, acidic odor, the name of which would not come to mind at once, even if you savored it, a smell of island fruit.

  "Oh! madam," stammered the young man contemplating this hand by the fleeting light of the lanterns, "you spoil me!" (He was examining this pretty piece of flesh with the eyes of an expert in the art of discovering physical flaws.) "Yes," he said seriously, "you must be suffering, ill, or distressed, an ether drinker, or a morphine addict, or . . . the heart . . . The blue veins along your wrist . . . are almost violet and . . . it's exquisite."

  "Not as ill as that. I'm bored, that's all. As for you, you're a medical student."

  She smiled.

  He shrugged.

  "No doubt; quite a poor . . . little boy. I'm bored, too. That luxury is the only thing we have in common, madam."

  "Oh! It's quite enough to make us both rich. ..."

  The carriage came to a halt.

  They had to venture out into the dismal night once more with the rain beating on their backs.

  The coachman opened the door, then a gate in front of the carriage, the wet branches causing a sudden downpour.

  "Don't make any noise, dear sir, I have a child sleeping in the house. That's why the carriage turned in through the garden. Are you there?"

  "Yes, madam, and yet . . . it would have made more sense to go somewhere else for supper . . . don't you think? so as not to wake your . . . child."

  "She's not my daughter, she's my niece. And then there is my old brother-in-law, too. He is deaf, fortunately! No, I prefer to have supper at home."

  So, as she went up the front steps, she took his arm, pushed him, guided him past the boxes of large, humid plants.

  "There . . . we've arrived," she whispered. "I live on the ground floor, the others are above."

  "That's wise," he retorted.

  They found themselves in a round dining room, lit by a huge yellow tulip, that bloomed over a delicately set table at a touch of Eliante's forefinger.

  One single place setting, but two partridges, two pitchers of cream, two dishes of fruit and gateau,—the gateau, in strange shapes, the fruit, superb—It was warm; green silk hangings trickled in wavy folds from the ceiling like weeping willow branches, shelves held crystalware in varied, and fluid, shades, neither door, nor window was visible, and a thick carpet, as soft as grass, imprisoned the ankle. It might be described as a bit of summer garden at dusk, a corner of warm garden, all silvery with reflected moonlight.

  "Not anticipating that I would have the pleasure of inviting you back, dear sir, only one place has been set. Allow me to double it. I don't like servants while I'm eating. How about you?"

  This was said with somewhat heavy irony. He let her organize a second place setting without answering.

  She sat down, throwing her heavy oriental coat over the back of her chair, a cathedra of reddish wood, naively carved, a very old seat, enormous and solid.

  "There, we're comfortable, we'll eat a lot, and drink a little; and then you'll be so kind as to leave by the way you know. The gate is still ajar. But take off your overcoat, Mr., Mr . . . what was it again? I forgot. ..." (And she pinched her lips together, mockingly.) "Introduce youtself."

  "Leon Reille, madam."

  "Perfect: Leon Reille, my best friend. I remember the com-missionet saying that at the buffet, the tall one with the stupid look. Are you really his best ftiend?"

  "Me? It's the second time I've met him."

  "Ah! So much the better."

  And they burst out laughing.

  She cut up the partridges, her hands freed from their black sheaths, her torso snugly pressed into the scabbard of her dress, and only her white hands were clearly visible, seeming even more naked. She was decidedly made-up, very pale from either powder or complexion. Even her eyes, black and white, were hidden beneath the fur of her eyelashes. Nothing showed her to be a woman. She remained a large, painted doll, very interesting because it is perfectly natural for dolls to be artificial.

  Could one play with that doll?

  She ate with a hearty appetite, mixing things on her plate: slices of banana and truffles, she spread cream on sandwiches, drank out of an unusual, crescent-shaped glass, in which the wine, or perhaps water, changed shade each time she took a drink.

  She seemed at once very much at home and outside of all possible worlds.

  He ate a lot to give himself something to do, drank little, fearing to displease her and felt acutely uncomfortable.

  The light which fell directly on him made him younger, almost schoolboyish. He was dark-haired and clean-shaven, with a hard, stubborn chin, a straight nose, flaring slightly at

  the nostrils, dark grey eyes that seemed to be searching, scouring, dreaming, and as though veiled with a bluish film, a transparent curtain drawn across the passions that lay dormant deep down within him. He moved awkwardly in his black suit an
d did not know how to tie the difficult knot of his cravat properly.

  For an instant, during desert, the young man's feet lightly brushed those of Madame Donalger.

  He pulled back, embarrassed, for he knew they were covered with mud.

  "How vulgar you must find me," he murmured.

  "No, I find you natural, which surprises me, with all the artificial young people running around these days. And that's why you're here."

  "I quite understand. Do you think I'm naive?"

  She examined him for a moment. Her black eyes caught one of the golden flames of the tulip. She put an elbow on the table, cupping her cheek in her palm. She thought for a moment, maintaining a grave expression. When she laughed, she had an extraordinary little-girl face. When she became serious again, she assumed a tragic mask.

  "I see you," she said finally, "as you will be, if not as you are, dear sir. You're trying in vain to resist the god who leads you; only the god is stronger than you are, and he will play some nasty tricks on you. No, I never make fun of those whom a god deigns to lead. I wouldn't dare."

  "The god ... is it you?"

  "I'm only a woman, nothing more . . . nothing less," she added with quiet pride.

  "Good. And the temple?"

  She did not answer, serious still.

  He lowered his head, biting his lips, regretting his answer and vexed at not being able to find something wittier or more direct.

  Around him, the deep silence, the warm atmosphere dulled his thinking. He had the feeling of sinking down into a comforter. The crystal glass cast trembling rays of moonlight, the silverware, light to handle, clinked discretely against the delicately colored porcelain, rousing only his appetite, and when he drank, the bouquet of the wine gave him the illusion of chewing flowers.