The juggler

by Rachilde, 1860-1953

  She smiled constantly as she followed with her eyes the flaming knives, and her look, under the black mask, shone luminous and solemn, the eyes of a tigress watching the games of her little ones, and who forces herself to show how easy they are to lead in existence.

  The knives passed, passed again, flew, and made an unusual metallic sound ring out. Her powerful little hands did not tire of receiving them, of throwing them, of receiving them again, so that for a moment, the rhythm being perfect, they seemed to be turning themselves around a crown of blue flames, a crown of immobile knives.

  People applauded. Leon left the joy of the noisy manifestation to his neighbors. Having taken refuge in the last row of

  guests, he kept for himself the pain of seeing net there, standing and juggling, separated from her family, from society, from the whole world, from all of human society by the enigma of her perpetual comedy.

  And he guessed that she was juggling not only in his honor or in their honor, she juggled to please herself. It was as though one could feel another blade both perfidious and passive vibrate in her. She amused herself naively, absolutely, with the unusual pleasure she procured for them, and she needed too the acute desire of the looks focused on her, all the vibration of an atmosphere charged with amorous electricity.

  Leon knew how that would end in the wings! She was not one of those actresses who tire after the encore. She would play again, vibrating with the single metallic vibration of her knives, a steel blade tempered in the fires of passions, henceforth disdainful of blood and flesh, using only its own black sheath.

  As the waltz became more ardent, Eliante put one knee on the ground, continuing to juggle in this gracious posture of inspiration.

  She made the knives pass behind her shoulder with the hesitating little gesture of the child who risks the difficult bit, and, at the moment one least expected it, with a chord on the harp, she quickly leaned her head back and received the last knife full in the breast. It went in, seemed to quiver like the first one had quivered in the floor of the platform.

  The audience let out a cry of admiration.

  Leon shouted in horror, covering his face.

  Madame Donalger, solemnly, removed the knife, looked for a pretty little lace handkerchief in her star-spangled velvet belt, then wiped it and, as it should, the handkerchief turned red.

  Eliante stood up, bowed.

  It was the end, the highlight, the new trick one always owes to the regulars.

  The girls shouted, threw bouquets, their cheeks quite pink.

  The young men, some of whom did not know the trick, were a little pale.

  A wave of madness made the blood run hotter in the veins, and the white draperies were tinged with pink, imitating the deceptive little handkerchief. The lowered curtains reopened three times.

  People stormed the stage, Monsieur Donalger, remembering his young evenings at the opera, offered his arm to his sister-in-law. Missie had an idea.

  "A collection, gentlemen, a collection! All your buttonholes on the dish!"

  Flowers rained onto a large feather fan held by Eliante, who was getting angry, saying she wanted to change costume first.

  Arriving in front of Leon Reille, she smiled:

  "You don't have a button-hole, do you . . . so . . . give me a coin . . . one little coin with a hole in the middle, mister, that will bring me luck!"

  Missie was delighted to see the young man troubled.

  "Oh! the big fool has nothing to offer us! So steal some mistletoe! . . . There's no shortage of it, all around you!"

  Mechanically, he pulled out his change purse, revealing, among the gold coins, a thinner one, a holy medallion his mother had given him and which he dared not lose because it would have caused a scene ... in the family (Madame Reille asked to see it once a year, on Easter day.) He threw it on the fan. Eliante picked it up.

  "Well, well! A Virgin medallion! Thank you, sir ... I shall pay you back."

  And she bowed solemnly, while Missie pursed her lips. In the gap of the leotard, split above the heart to hold the case which received the knife, he saw white skin, the case was no longer there ... he closed his eyes.

  no The Juggler

  "I should hope so, madam," he stuttered.

  Eliante left the ball to get dressed.

  Missie supervised the distribution of the champagne.

  The servants put away the chairs.

  Leon seeing everyone very busy, the orchestra starting up a quadrille, slipped along a corridor. He knew the way a little, got his bearings, collided with servants carrying refreshments who growled.

  What he was trying to do, he didn't really know very well himself. He went down a service staircase all padded with Turkish carpets, reached the bedroom, found no one there, crossed the dining room and bumped into a cathedra, which made a noise falling over.

  A door opened, a woman let out a cry of terror. Leon assured himself that she was alone in the little old rose salon.

  "Eliante," he whispered, "I've come for the change from my medallion."

  Softly though he spoke, she jumped back, seized something shiny on a dressing table, either the diamond butterfly which topped off her wig or one of the knives . . . and threw the knife randomly, with all her strength.

  The young man, instinctively, covered his chest with his hat, but his hand was pricked.

  "Oh! Eliante! It's me . . . you could have killed me?"

  They remained for a second looking at one another, breathing heavily.

  The temple in which the great white vase was set up had been transformed into a dressing room, and a huge mirror hid the famous pot.

  Eliante began to laugh, nervously, then, without transition, threw herself into the arms of the young man.

  "Darling! Darling! I didn't want to do it! I didn't want to hurt you! My dear little love friend. . . . You see, it's stronger than me the idea that I shall be surprised . . . raped ... I can't bear that."

  She hung on his neck, unmasked, uncombed, all enraptured by pleasure and emotion, her face upset, her eyes sparkling.

  "Not very nice your fine knife."

  He showed her his bloodied hand.

  So she busied herself, poured water, waved phials and powder puffs.

  "There, it's nothing! I love you! I'm not mean. . . . It's my nerves. Kiss me! Forgive me!" (She pressed her whole body against him, her hands clutching his shoulders, supple as a serpent.) "I'm happy to detain you an instant here and tell you that the party is for you. Did I entertain you, at least?"

  "Naturally! A white ball, that suits me completely. I'm so chaste. Ah! don't kiss me, you know, or I'll shout! Missie, your brother-in-law, your heaps of people! I'm absolutely scandalized. Aren't you ashamed to offer yourself to everyone the same day. Are you all right? Tell me? who taught you to juggle, your husband again, no doubt!"

  "No ..." (she pulled up the collar of her leotard), "it was in Java, during a fever I'd caught, in that country. I was bored, Henri had some jugglers come, and I learned, having nothing better to do. I often injured myself, then I ended up really knowing it. You just have to keep up your hand from time to time. You're going to leave, aren't you? I must get dressed, they're waiting for me upstairs."

  "Leave . . . as if I wanted to!"

  "Come on! Don't give me frights . . . since I love you. Your letter is a good letter . . . you love me too, don't you. I think in the end we'll come to an agreement . . . only ... I want to have you as a lover . . . when it suits me. . . . Should lovers love each other like . . . spouses? No! it would be ridiculous! there must be a difference! And Missie is watching us! I'm not free and ... I don't want to hurt anyone any more. . . . My brother-in-law, poor thing, he would die of sorrow."

  While saying these things, strange in her juggler's mouth, she was swooning, seized by the odor of the young male who was kissing her neck, and the beauty of their pose being reflected in the clear mirror.

  They were very beautiful, very proper, she quite naked under the clinging si
lk of the leotard, without a corset, without a ribbon tying her limbs, he covered in nuptial satin.

  "What do you love about me today?" he asked, wanting to cry with rage, for, decidedly, she was mad.

  "I don't know .... I think it's this white satin; my nails when they touch it tremble as at the touch of the edge of my knives. And then I feel, I'm certain to be beautiful, to please you. That makes me madly happy."

  "You can't imagine anything better? In a word, you're going to make us lose eternity waiting for a more propitious time . . . what time could be better than this?" (And bitterly he added): "Will you be younger, eh, tomorrow, or in a year? Think a little, Eliante, have pity on yourself!"

  "Here's the point," she said, shaking her head, "there's the moment or there's eternity. You must choose. ... In a year, in two years . . . tomorrow perhaps you will see me grow old! I want to pass over your life like a dream and not like a vulgar realization. I know I'm the only one . . . the doctors have told me, and I'm afraid of the love of men which is mortal."

  "Egotist!"

  "I have the right, for I no longer want to kill."

  "Your husband ..."

  "My husband is dead because of me. First, he got worried, had fits of violent trembling, his hands and feet danced on their own; his officers noticed something, one day while he was steering his vessel and ... I didn't want to accompany him any more. . . . But his worries grew, he had attacks of terrible jealousy, because I was no longer there. He wrote me

  terrible letters . . . which kept me from sleeping. He fell completely ill, gave his tesignation and died at home, senile." (She added in a childish voice): "The little medallion, tell me, where does it come from, Leon?"

  "From my mother," Leon answered her, crushed.

  "May I keep it? It will protect me from bad luck."

  "Of course! what's that got to do with it? Eliante? You're lying! you must be lying . . . why are you lying to me?"

  "No, there's a furnace inside me. I'm inhabited by a god."

  There was a painful silence.

  "Eliante! Will you marry me? Endow your niece with your whole fortune, keep only the knickknacks you like, and come with me. I'll cure you ... or we'll die trying."

  She turned away, arranged her face in front of the mirror.

  "Come on, I'm going to get dressed! I'll put something on over my leotard, and we'll go back up together, since you want to stay here."

  She took off her velvet belt.

  "Here," she said sadly, "give me both your hands . . . and swear to be good . . . it's the doctor I'm talking to."

  Looking into his eyes, she placed his hands on her sides. They were burning, and he was so surprised that he didn't even think to smile.

  "But, darling, it isn't reasonable. One isn't hot like that when one wants to live alone!"

  "One is hot like that when one is Love . . . and when one is love one can live alone. Come on, leave ..."

  He didn't go away, his arms hanging.

  She got dressed, resigned to not taking off her leotard. She put on a strange outfit, a sort of black velvet jacket, very tight at the waist in the back, opening, at the front, onto a long cascade of yellow sulphur silk gauze. Mixed ruby and amethyst brooches fastened the riding coat over the foamy under layer. Like a good actress who must go back on stage, she

  ii4 The Juggler

  redid her face, and, after the last dab of the powder puff, she turned round:

  "Look at me! I'm old ... as old as love, and I feel as young as when I came out of my convent. Do you want to marry me? You are my fiance? I promise to give you a virgin as reward! That will be the change from your medallion. . . . Come on, your arm . . . and let's escape quickly."

  At the ball, Missie was shouting:

  "The wooden horses, gentlemen! 2 Hurry up! Ah! here is Monsieur Reille! Not a minute too soon. ... I was looking for you. Where is my aunt then? She hasn't come back up? She's a long time at her toilette. We can hardly dance without her."

  Eliante, according to their convention, entered by another door. People crowded around her, and cornered her. Leon didn't see her again to speak of for the rest of the evening.

  At the light meal at small tables, Missie arranged things so as to find herself alone with the young man.

  She suspected things.

  "We had fun here, today, didn't we, sir? Why do you have such a long face?"

  "Great deal of fun, mademoiselle. ... A day I shall never forget my whole life."

  "You say that as though you were about to hang yourself! Do you like the quails in little cases? Pass me the champagne. You're not drinking? It's true you haven't danced, either."

  "No thank you, I'm not very thirsty. Or ... I think I would drink too much, if I drank."

  "Ah! Ah! sorrows to drown?"

  "No! the noise, the heat ..."

  People were chatting and bursting with laughter around them. Eliante was going from table to table, finding out about needs and whims, saying a gracious word, distributing candy or cakes. Carrying an enormous basket of gilded wickerwork, she seemed to be offering herself, sparkling with jewels and

  enveloped in light gauze like a beautiful rare fruit in silk paper. She was still juggling! She was always juggling!

  Leon's vision was disturbed.

  Missie leaned over.

  "You find her very beautiful, eh, my aunt Donalger."

  "Yes . . . that is to say ... I find her a little frightening."

  "Because she juggles with knives?"

  "No," replied Leon getting carried away in spite of himself, "because she juggles with men ..."

  He stopped, confused, his eyes suddenly lowered. He was talking in the presence of a girl.

  Missie pouted.

  "I understand . . . you're in love with her, you tool"

  The response was so brutal that he completely forgot his role of good naive young man.

  "There are many, then, who court her, mademoiselle?"

  "Many, that depends! She lets them come for me, at first. It's a question of marrying me. Then, she does everything she can to . . . pinch them from me . . . for I'm of your opinion, she isn't bad, my aunt, only all the same, she's forty, you know!"

  Leon staggered. It seemed to him his glass of champagne contained gall.

  "But," continued Missie briskly, getting more animated as she ate, with a light perspiration pearling at the roots of her hair, "she'd be a lot better if she would wear a corset, she'd be my size. She has some funny habits! She sleeps until noon, eats cakes and fruit all day and only drinks pure water! No doubt to preserve her complexion. Even so, she wears too much makeup. These Creoles are only ever half Parisian women, provincial French women. In the street, people turn and look at her like a tart."

  Leon shuddered at each word stinging him like a whiplash, a whiplash from a cart driver. This big girl spoke heavily,

  had abandoned the voice of a schoolgirl on break, and one finally saw the positive woman she would be once married, that is to say, victorious. Ah! that one scarcely bothered to flatter the dreamers or put them to sleep by telling them nice Oriental stories! She got right to the point.

  Leon forced himself to smile, thinking:

  "This is indeed the virtuous person of whom Eliante said in one of her letters: . . . she isn't cruel, oh no! she finishes off the little cats she steps on! And that girl didn't have a penny, lived off the generosity of Madame Donalger, who treated her like her own child. At least if the brother-in-law was a glutton, he knew to stay deaf at the right times."

  "Indeed, mademoiselle," whispered Leon disconcerted, "she must often be taken for . . . something she isn't." 3

  "Huh! Neither my uncle, nor I, nor anyone, we'll never know what she really is. She goes out when she wants to, does whatever pleases her and doesn't consult us. She stays as closed as her room. As for me, I'm very glad to have my teaching diplomas, that could be useful one day."

  "What do you mean?"

  "If she remarried, we could seek our fortune
elsewhere, even though we have our rights!" (Missie broke off to suck a mandarin orange and spit the seeds on her plate with a crude movement of her mouth which revealed her gums.) "Yes, sir, I'm philosophical, I've given up on the future. I won't appeal, a lawyer advised me not to, because Eliante received her fortune as a dowry when she got married. Nothing to be done, naturally. But I've received, myself, a fair amount of education, and, by perfecting my singing or piano playing, I can give lessons. Today, a girl is no longer at the mercy of her relations, she is free. . . . Listen, in the public nursery that these young ladies and I founded, I can place myself in the capacity of assistant director whenever I want, and earn three thousand francs a year . . . with the lessons as well, I think a household could manage just as well. ... So long as one is

  young, things always work out. A husband buying you on your wedding day. . . . Ugh! It's vile! There are some things which shouldn't be bought. Everyone earns their own living, that's all!"

  "One buys, indeed, only . . . luxury goods," murmured Leon, a little enlivened by this verbiage of pure reason. "You wish to separate yourself from Madame Donalger, you're wrong. She may need you."

  "Come on! Eliante is a pathological case, she's a nervous woman, superstitious, a little mad, but she isn't ill in the true sense of the word. She cries over salt spilled on the tablecloth, and she's afraid someone will break a mirror . . . or a pot, but she's solid as a brick." (She lowered her voice.) "She made her husband so unhappy with all her whims that he died of it. One minute she wanted to follow him, the next she refused to accompany him. I heard from an old negro woman, whom we had to get rid of because she was very dirty, that Madame was so gentle she was like a mummy. Women of the world . . . the backward world, who never know how to behave, oppose you always with the force of inertia: 'I'm weak!' 'I have small hands!' 'I'm lazy!' A heap of whimsical pretexts. And the men go completely off the rails."