THE PUBLIC BALL
Oh! my remembrances, faithful companions, I cannot take a step in this
world but you rise before me! When, with Laurence on my arm, I cast from
a gallery a rapid glance around the ball-room full of noise and light, I
saw again, in a sudden and sad vision, the smooth, stone-paved floor
upon which the girls of Provence dance, in the evening, to the music of
the fife and tambourine! How we used to ridicule them! The peasant
girls, not those of our dreams, those who had the faces and the hearts
of queens, but poor creatures whom the ardent soil had faded before
their time, seemed to us to bound heavily, casting us silly smiles as
they lumbered by. We closed our eyes against reality. We saw, beyond the
horizon, immense palaces, halls paved with marble, with lofty and gilded
roofs, filled with a whole nation of young women, who danced with the
utmost harmony, in a cloud of lace spangled with diamonds. Truly, we
were foolish children. Now, brothers, the peasant girls have taken
vengeance for our disdain.
I beheld, from the gallery in which I found myself, a sort of oblong
hall, of quite large dimensions, ornamented with faded paintings and
gilding. A fine dust, raised by the dancers' feet, ascended slowly from
the floor, like a mist, and filled the place. The bright flames of the
gas looked red in this cloud; everything had a vague appearance, a
strange hue of old copper. At the further end of the hall, galloped a
frightful circle of creatures who could not be seen distinctly; the fury
of their movements seemed to communicate itself to the thick and
nauseous air; in the whirl, I thought I saw the walls tremble and turn
with the crowd. A piercing clamor, accompanied by a sort of prolonged
roll, drowned the music of the orchestra.
I cannot describe to you the first impressions produced on me by this
place, in which each thing had in my eyes a special and unknown life.
The shrill noises, the sonorous laughter bursting out like sobs, the
frightful contortions of the furious dancers, the biting and suffocating
odors, all came to me in a sharp sensation which filled my being with a
vague terror, with which was mingled a sad pleasure. I could not laugh,
for I felt my throat close, and yet I was unable to turn away my head,
so delirious was the joy I experienced amid my suffering. I now
understand the fascination of these exciting soirées. At the first
sight one trembles, one refuses to lend himself to the terrible gayety;
then intoxication comes, and, with bewildered brain, one abandons
himself to the gulf. Common souls are soon won over. Those who have the
strength of their dreams--dare I, brothers, count myself among
them?--revolt, and, in their frankness, regret the humble dancing-floors
of Provence upon which the awkward and lumbering peasant girls dance in
the fresh, clear night.
From the gallery in which we were, we could see only the general effect
of the scene. We quitted it, descending the stairways and reaching the
main floor by passing through narrow and dark passages. Arrived in the
ball-room, we were forced to follow a slender path contrived between the
walls and the quadrilles. All my pleasure was gone; I now felt only
disgust. The women were clad in tatters, in ragged silks spangled with
dirty brass; their bare shoulders were dripping with perspiration;
paint, in broad pools, in long streaks, reddened and blued their skin.
One of them, with an inflamed visage and a hoarse voice, turned towards
me, gesticulating and shouting. What a strange, hideous face she had! I
shall see it again in my bad dreams!
I do not remember having noticed the men. They were, it seems to me, for
the most part, standing straight and motionless, looking with great
calmness at the tumultuous bounds of the women. I cannot tell you what
kind of people they were, or if they appeared to comprehend the extent
of their idiocy.
Weary already, feeling my head ready to split, I reached a table,
dragging Laurence after me. We sat down, and I drank what the waiter
brought me, studying my companion.
Laurence, at her entrance, had smiled, quivering with enjoyment,
breathing her fill of that vitiated air so sweet to her lips. Her smile
soon vanished and her countenance resumed its mournful look. Sometimes,
she put out her arm and touched the hand of a woman or a man who passed.
On such occasions her smile reappeared for a few seconds, and then
vanished again. Partially thrown back upon her chair, her feet resting
on a small bench, she rocked herself slowly, gazing into the ball-room
with an air at once attentive and wearied. She looked from group to
group in silence, turning her head at each new noise, seeming to wish to
let nothing escape her. But there was so much fatigue in her attention
that I asked myself, as I saw her pale and desolate face, what singular
pleasure she could be experiencing to show so little of it.
Twice, thinking that my presence was a clog to her, I told her to leave
me if she liked, to mingle with and greet her friends, to dance in
perfect freedom.
"Why should I get up?" she tranquilly answered me. "I am very
comfortable and perfectly satisfied. Are you weary of having me beside
you?"
It was thus that we passed five hours, face to face, in a corner of the
ball-room, I unconsciously sketching men's figures on the marble top of
the table with a few drops of liquor spilled from a decanter, she
maintaining despairing gravity and silence, her hands crossed upon her
lap. I no longer had the least comprehension of what was going on around
me. As the ball was drawing towards its close, I felt more like
suffocating than ever. This was the last sensation that I remember
having experienced. When the final galop drew me from this species of
deep stupor, I saw Laurence arise; she swore and kicked aside the little
bench, which had become entangled among her skirts; then, she took my
arm, and we made a final tour of the ball-room before departing. Upon
the threshold, Laurence turned with a yawn, casting a last look at the
disordered circle of dancers who were vociferating in the midst of a
frightful din.
When we reached the street, an icy blast, which struck me in the face,
gave me a delicious feeling. I felt that I was restored to the good, to
free and energetic life; the intoxication which had possessed me was
driven away, and, beneath the drizzling winter rain, I had an instant of
ineffable pleasure, casting from me all the disgusts of the mad night. I
comprehended the wretchedness I had left behind me; I would have
preferred to go home on foot through the streets, allowing the glacial
water to penetrate me and renew my being.
Laurence shivered at my side. She had fastened her handkerchief over her
bare shoulders; not daring to venture on, she looked in a despairing way
at the sombre sky and at the gutters which were overflowing upon the
pavements. The poor girl thought the wintry sky capable only of giving
her inflammation of the lungs.
I had two francs left. I hailed a fiacre and helped Laurence into it.
She gathered herself up in one of the corners and there sat silently,
without ceasing to shiver. I saw her on my left, like a patch of
tarnished white. Sometimes, a drop of water, which had remained upon her
garments, rolled as far as my hand.
After an instant had elapsed, a sort of drowsiness seized upon me and
sleep closed my eyes. As I dozed, I seemed to hear the din of the ball;
the jolts of the vehicle whirled me away as in a furious dance, and the
axle-trees, with their sharp noise, played those airs which all night
long had filled my ears. When, feverish and excited, I opened my eyes, I
stared stupidly at the sides of the narrow box which seemed to me full
of music and tumult. Then, I felt a biting sensation of cold; finding
beneath my hand the icy hand of Laurence, I remembered where I had been
and realized where I was. Without, the rain was still falling; the
flickering lights fled rapidly behind us.
Fatigue once more made me close my eyes, and again I was drawn into the
midst of gigantic circles of dancers, incessantly renewed. It seems to
me now that I remember vaguely having danced thus for long hours. I
found myself nailed to a bench, beside a shivering woman, and I whirled
I know not how in a sort of box which rolled with a tremendous noise at
the bottom of a glacial gulf.
Having ascended to my chamber, while Laurence was taking off her
costume, I threw all my remaining wood upon the fire, which was faintly
burning upon the hearth. Then, I hastened to bed, happy as a child to
find myself again amid my poverty, gazing with loving glances at the
broad lights and shadows which the flames of the hearth caused to dance
up and down along my poor walls. Calmness had taken possession of me
from the moment I crossed the threshold of this retired chamber. With my
head upon the pillow, at peace and almost smiling, I gazed at my
companion who, standing pensively before the fire, was removing her
garments one by one.
She soon came to me, and sat down at my feet on the edge of the bed.
Breaking, at last, the silence which she had maintained until then, she
began to talk with extreme volubility.
Enveloped in an old wrapper, with her feet drawn up under her and her
hands clasped in front of her knees, she indulged in loud bursts of
laughter, throwing her head backwards. She seemed to be in haste to
throw off all the words, all the gayety, she had amassed. For nearly a
whole hour she entertained me with a recital of the thousand incidents
of the ball. She had seen everything, heard everything. She gave vent to
exclamations without end, sudden joys, hurried and tumultuous
reminiscences. A man had slipped in such a way, a woman had sworn in
such another way; Jeanne wore a milkmaid's costume which became her
marvellously; Louise looked hideous as a Scotch lassie; as to Edouard,
he had certainly pawned his watch that very morning. And she rattled on,
always finding some new detail, repeating the same circumstance ten
times rather than pause. Then, shivering with cold, she finally went to
bed. She asserted that she had never before been so much amused at a
ball, and made me promise to take her to another as soon as I possibly
could. She fell asleep thus, while still talking to me, laughing amid
her slumber.
This sudden awakening to life, this flood of feverish words, strangely
astonished me. I could not then and I cannot now explain to myself the
coldness and indolence of this girl amid the tumult of the night, and
her bursts of gayety, her chatter of the morning in our sad and silent
chamber. Why had she torn from me the promise to take her as soon and as
often as possible to these balls, where she laughed so little and did
not dance at all? Besides, if she were acting in good faith, what was
that singular joy which had manifested itself by silence and ill-humor
during the soirée, and, later, had broken out in thick and delighted
laughter?
Oh! what an unknown world is that of the flesh and dissipation, in which
I find food for amazement at every step! I dare not as yet critically
examine all this wretchedness, the motives of this puzzling woman, cold
in her feelings, weary and half asleep amid her joys! I took her to the
ball to save her, but she had come back from it more terrible, more
impenetrable than ever!