The juggler

by Rachilde, 1860-1953

  Leon Reille.

  "P.S.—Missie disgusts me as much as poached eggs in cream."

  L.R.

  (By telegram, the next day.) "Tonight ..."

  Eliante Donalger.

  H,

  E entered, that spring day, as on Christmas day, via the little garden the gate of which was open.

  His heart was beating deliciously, and he felt an irreverent gaiety, without having, however, the ridiculous ideas of a man conceited by imminent triumph.

  She was giving in.

  That was simpler, more in keeping with life; but that would not happen on its own, for a juggler of her calibre was bound to contrive some surprises for him.

  Pleasant or unpleasant, the surprises? Would he be obliged to get angry at the last minute, to act like the trainers confronted with the air drinker, the famous mare whose eyes had to be burned to make her carry Mohammed?

  And he recapitulated:

  "No, she won't kill herself, but she's capable of trying, all the same? She will have sent Missie to the public nurseries and the deaf diplomat to his friend the wine taster. We'll have plenty of time to discuss the type of death, in the afternoon. Toward evening, a light meal, wine from the islands, will soften us up. Me, I demand asphyxiation by roses. I've sent

  enough of them to decorate her entire room and to scatter on the carpets. Now, there's poison and a bullet from a revolver. Very dirty in its results, poison; the revolver . . . that's quite old hat, moreover, that makes a lot of noise, especially when one misses, and that sets the servants onto you. It remains to persuade her that by keeping her in bed, for a week, I undertake to make her forget the taste of Chinese pimento with which Monsieur Donalger used to season his conjugal caresses. I believe, all things considered, that my most dangerous enemy is that naval officer who still commands the phantom vessel of her dreams. There are some people who must be buried under mountains! It's funny, I feel well disposed, very happy, I'm no longer afraid of her, but, the dead man obsesses me. I'd better shake that off smartly. After all, yesterday, I saw her as a magician capable of casting a spell on me; today, I have the glorious awakening of the spectator who returns to the theatre to find the great actress at his sides, in flesh and blood, but not too much bone, offering her arms, minus the plaster. The husband? The prompter, of course! I have no need to trouble myself about my own lines. To begin with, we won't talk any more. The eternal things have been said! . . . Confound it! . . . Missie!"

  Standing, on the front steps, Marie Chamerot greeted him, blushing a little, charming moreover, for she was growing more beautiful since being sincerely taken by the student. She too was trying to smother in her heart the furious beating of Eros's wings! Her eyes were shining, adding hidden meanings to the slightest phrases; her hair was done like a warrior of love like her aunt, she proudly wore the smooth helmet of her hair, revealing her forehead, showing her nape, and she had put on again, that day, a coquettish April outfit of white and pink, little Pompadour bouquets drowning in a cream background. Ever the poached eggs in cream! and already the gallant tip of the carmine bud which bursts its envelope.

  "Hello, mademoiselle! You're not cycling today then? Is Madame Donalger well? Am I arriving too early? You were on your way out? I'm so badly brought up."

  "No, sir, we weren't about to go out. My aunt is a little poorly."

  "What's the matter with her?" interrupted the anxious young man, all his triumphant gaiety having flown away.

  "Oh! nothing serious! She got up very late, complained of nervous pains, lunched better than usual however; she drank some wine, she who never drinks any, and she went down to her apartments, telling me she wanted to prepare her room to show us her beautiful robes. You know, the collection from the hot countries? On the contrary, she is very gay, although ailing, she wants to make us dance ... to teach you, sir."

  And she sketched a gracious bow.

  "She isn't seriously ill, Marie, you would tell me, wouldn't you?"

  Marie examined the young man, with a worried expression, as if she were seeing him for the first time. Her gaze of a small free person had something hard, a startled fear or a resolution, mixed with an inexplicable timidity.

  "I'll learn, mademoiselle, I'll learn anything she wants, and I hope you'll help me?" murmured Leon politely.

  "Oh! me, I don't know the Spanish rituals! It will be very entertaining for you if she gets involved in it. Me, I'm still a pupil."

  "A very . . . well-trained pupil, mademoiselle! I've seen you dance." (They returned together to the water-green dining room.) "My highest compliments on your dress, Missie, and on your new hairstyle? A waist, hair! You're exquisite! Do you mind?"

  And he took a flower from her corsage, a little half-opened bud, which he slipped into his buttonhole.

  "It's not fair!" she said sadly, "You don't love me ... "

  "You think I don't love you? You're mistaken, mademoiselle. Today, the effect of spring, I love everyone, I love all women . . . and I would marry them all if someone wanted to give me them all! Alas, no one ever gives me anything . . . except flowers . . . and even then, only when I . . . take them back?"

  "Excuse me! When you steal them!" retorted Missie with fire in her cheeks, not knowing that the young man had sent bunches of roses to her aunt, that very morning.

  "God!" said the student hypocritically, "one takes ones goods where one finds them! there's an ambiguity there, but it doesn't concern you. Missie, show me your progress in the art of medicine, eh! in what way do you look after Madame Don-alger's migraines, my dear colleague?"

  "You insist that I talk to you about her? Do you want me to go and fetch her? She's getting dressed. You are incorrigible, sir. You're the one who won't be cured easily. I don't look after my aunt. She's afraid of all the doctors, including student doctors, you know!"

  "Bah! Am I so terrible then, mademoiselle my dear colleague?"

  He threw his hat and his cane onto a couch with the gesture of a man who is at home. Mademoiselle Chamerot was smiling, but he noticed that her eyes were all humid from a deep emotion. There was cruelty in making fun of her on such a day. Since Madame Donalger would be appearing, he would be good, tender, brotherly. He would do his job of seducer, discreetly, while waiting for something better.

  "I beg you, Missie," he said very winningly, planting himself in front of her and offering his hands, "if she cannot bear me, try to make me forget it for one afternoon. Be charitable?"

  "Yet it's true," sighed Missie, squeezing his hands despite

  her violent desire to turn her back on him, "I must love you for those who don't love you. She couldn't care less, about lovers, could she?"

  Leon shook his head, smiling.

  "She's wrong ... a nice warm heart, that's a very pleasant thing to place on the corner of the mantelpiece when one is reading novels."

  Marie shrugged her shoulders, and unable to hold back any longer, she cried, in her purest Parisian ragamuffin voice:

  "Your heart? Fine! She has a cupboard full of them, warm hearts. And she doesn't use them, it's like her beautiful robes that mildew! I tell you she's mad!"

  "That's my opinion absolutely!" declared Leon, who could not help laughing and pulling her up to him to kiss her chastely, on the forehead.

  Marie let go of his hands, and went to arrange some fruit on a crystal fruit stand.

  "We'll have a light meal with her," she said feverishly, trying to disguise her emotion; "Mademoiselle Louise will take part; we'll eat frangipani tartlets, we'll drink cream of violets, and we'll taste the Anam apples which are ripe, apparently! Are you familiar with Anam apples? You suck them with straws, like sorbet. It's very good. Mademoiselle Louise, that's the musician from the white ball, a tall blond, more blond than me; she wears her hair in virgin's bandeaux and, if she didn't have such a long nose, she'd be quite beautiful; but, there you are, I've noticed that all the musicians had long noses!"

  "Enough about the Anam apples! My appetite is whetted, and there will neve
r be enough of it," affirmed the young man; "only what is Mademoiselle Louise's nose doing in this fine dessert, my dear Missie?"

  "You're funny! We can't teach you to dance without her.

  Mademoiselle Frehel will take the piano. My aunt doesn't allow us to make our own music, so long as there are great artists to take care of it."

  "I recognize her well in that! Damned princess!" he growled, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Eliante's voice was heard, behind the door, Eliante's voice, her real voice.

  She entered, leading Mademoiselle Louise Frehel by the arm.

  "Hello, children" said Eliante affectionately, her eyes half closed like someone who has just woken up, "I bring you our Madonna of the harp, she is most kind to have put herself out for us. Mademoiselle Louise, may I introduce Monsieur Leon Reille, a future dancer . . . if he wants to learn, and he must learn. You are well, my dear friend. Me, I'm nervous . . . I'll break everything . . . my fingers are trembling. . . . Look!"

  She held her hand out to him.

  Leon felt inundated by a powerful joy. She was there, standing, smiling, and if her small hand was trembling, she had her beautiful eyes of love, her most passionate eyes, and, if she did not yet dare to show them to others, he sensed them clearly beneath their fringe of fur. She was in white, draped with a large ivory velvet; she was wearing the engagement dress, the Christmas dress.

  "Christmas!" answered the young man's heart with a leap.

  "Madam, in your school," he said bowing, "what wouldn't one learn? And how is Monsieur Donalger?"

  "My brother-in-law is at a lawyer's, at the moment, a matter of paperwork for which I cannot take responsibility myself. I think we'll see him either for our collation, or for dinner, for we'll keep you this evening, Monsieur Reille, we shan't dismiss you until after dark. The question is settled."

  "I understand perfectly well," said the young man to himself reassured, "I'll pretend to leave officially , and I'll come back through the garden, once the lights go out; there's no

  longer any question of suicide, and that simplifies the outcome. This is a wedding night which promises to be even better than I dared dream. I almost feel like learning to dance."

  Missie fell upon the neck of the tall blond girl. The latter removed her hat, her coat, and appeared artistically dressed in a brown wool dress, a sort of nun's outfit with an austere grace, making the virginal bandeaux and aquiline nose stand out . . . yes, a little long, but prettily shaped, something of a virtuoso.

  And the three women, preceding the young man, entered the temple.

  The high chamber was lit by its three oval windows all gleaming with sun; the three topazes were streaming with magnificent fires without the slightest indication of landscape and bathed in a warm light all the dark furniture; Leon recognized, in the place of the antique Eros, his roses from the morning, soaking in a colossal bowl of Venetian glass, with nuances of opal. Above the swan tuffet, flowers of every color intertwined, mingled, rebelled, little buds or large blooming roses, like cupids in a nest, and they overflowed onto the white fur, they fell everywhere. Petals flew in all directions, but this clear and scented cascade could not compete with the violence of the perfume of the mysterious room. It smelled of vetiver, also island fruit . . . and higher up, beneath the vault of darkness, there reigned that inexplicable smell of negro oil, of which Madame Donalger sometimes spoke, a wild animal smell.

  Fast asleep, the lions, the tigers, the panthers presented still their formidable heads in the middle of panels of gold cloth and still the unusual big bed, in the shape of an egg, all pale under the peacock blue Brousse silks, seemed protected by them like the egg of the world, the seed of all love.

  The three women began to chatter quietly.

  "You've hidden the piano? That's just like you! Poor piano! you treat it with disdain, madam," Mademoiselle Lou-

  ise Frehel was saying while opening a keyboard in the middle of a little alcove of green palms.

  And the piano-monstet showed its white teeth, brutally. It had the air of a giant negro who smelled thus of rancid oil, yawning.

  "Oh! aunt, our Anam apples! They're much too soft!" declared Missie, busying herself with a pretty lacquer table with several levels, all piled high with special and delicate dishes.

  "Well, we'll have to squeeze them in the ice pail," answered Madame Donalger, very frightened merely at the idea that they would not be edible.

  And the two women, during a tender waltz prelude, knelt before a silver pail filled with ice, plunged their agile hands, withdrew round and sonorous silver utensils, knocking against each other with strange cymbal noises, placed the fruit there gently, as one would put the heads of little children on cushions in their cribs.

  Leon was smiling. He was king, that spring day, and it was his male royalty that the three adorable women were cradling.

  "Tonight!" he was thinking.

  Never did any young groom have a more marvelous wedding day, and never again would he see that. Everything which made the beauty of life was uniting to please him and prepare his happiness.

  When Eliante stood up again, leaving to Missie the task of powdering with crushed ice her little silver molds in which lay the Anam apples, their eyes met.

  He nervously bit his lips.

  Very serious, Eliante advanced toward him, rounded her arm above her head, as though suddenly carrying a lyre.

  "Now," she said, "we must amuse ourselves without remembering that life . . . passes."

  "I love you," answered Leon his voice all trembling with hope, "and it will never pass fast enough, today."

  "Missie," called Madame Donalger closing her eyes, "your minuet, if you please, that will give a first lesson in deportment to our pupil."

  Mademoiselle Louise Frehel began the minuet in a rapt silence. Eliante came to lean on the piano. Leon sat on the swan tuffet, and Missie, all bathed in blond light, stood up almost pretty, with the prettiness of an engraving in the topaz depths of the room.

  There was there a wide green cloth spread out on the Smyrna carpet, forming a close-cropped lawn, and she seemed to dance on the grass of a park, in the setting sun. Missie, a bit thin, a bit hip-shot, walking like a baker's boy who cycles with a basket, became suddenly elegant, posed, and the charm of the bittersweet melody, fragile, slightly sharp, helping, she made a solemn curtsey, together with a puckering of the mouth and eyelids of the most comic effect.

  The minuet picked up speed, her lively feet stepping out of step, she arrived too soon on the last chord, executed a slide, two or three jumps of a goat in revolt, and landed on a bow, brief and bold, of her own invention.

  Leon broke out in warm applause.

  "Bravo! . . .it's wonderful, totally successful, but I quite hope that no one is going to ask me to do as much. ... I would just as soon go hang myself!"

  "No one's asking you to learn that, it's too difficult," generously declared Missie out of breath and fanning herself with her handkerchief, "Mademoiselle Frehel is now going to dance a pavane for us. She's very clever, you know, and I shall accompany her. It's only to train your sight. You understand, old friend!"

  "Me, I'm the happiest of the four, if no one makes me do anything. I'll understand, on condition I remain seated."

  "Your turn will come, sir," said Mademoiselle Frehel in passing, with a kind smile of encouragement, for she found him pleasing, this handsome wild boy, who snuggled up in their skirts with the sly joy of a great voluptuous cat.

  And Missie played the pavane. And Eliante went to look for a fan for the dancer. Curiously, this virgin on the harp in the homespun outfit immediately took on the attitudes of a grand lady of the great century. She shook her skirt to one side and her fan to the other, as if she would make brocade and a scepter slide between her fingers. Her gentle, cadenced movements, always noble, had an extraordinary harmony. Leon, this time, was no longer laughing, he was beginning to realize that dance is probably not what shallow people think ... in the Latin Quarter.

&nbs
p; "Oh! how beautiful! What purity of line! More! More! Mademoiselle! One would think oneself in the galleries of Versailles."

  "You should see her dance in court costume," said Eliante who was daydreaming behind him, her forehead pressed against the freshness of the bowl filled with roses.

  "No! I prefer her nun's dress, it's more mysterious, and the nobility of her art is more transparent in it."

  Eliante let her moist hand fall on the young man's shoulder.

  "Is it not the case," she said quite quietly, "that art can be a consolation for many things. . . . That girl there is very poor, very good, still very pure, and no one dreams of marrying her, I think she suffers from it."

  "Yes," said Leon, touching his nose with his index finger, "ifs too longl"

  A haughty smile pulled back Madame Donalger's lips.

  "You talk like Missie. She's beautiful, that girl."

  "If you say so," breathed the young man, taking advantage of Missies presence at the piano to rub his head against

  Eliante's bodice. The latter pulled away, a flash of lightning in her pupils.

  Yet there was a storm brewing in this atmosphere of love, of ferocious jealousies which were sleeping like great beasts hung and crucified on the walls, and, sometimes, in a waft of the fan scattering the odor of the flowers and the savor of island fruit, one could smell rising above it the perfume of negro races, of cannibals!

  After the pavane, Missie and Leon danced, argued, shouted themselves hoarse and ended up grabbing hold of each other. It was because of the waltz.

  Mademoiselle Frehel struck desperate chords, in an effort to inculcate the science of rhythm in the young man who was getting irritated little by little.

  At one point, Missie threatened to pinch him.

  So, he came, quite piteous, toward Eliante.

  "Wouldn't you like to take charge of me?"