THE FAIR
Last evening, in order to obtain partial relief from my sufferings, I
strolled upon a fair ground. The faubourg was all gayety, and the people
in their Sunday clothes were noisily passing through the streets.
The lamps had just been lighted. The avenue, at regular distances, was
ornamented with yellow and blue posts, which were garnished with small,
colored pots, and in these pots were burning smoky wicks, the flame and
smoke being whirled about by the wind. In the trees Venetian lanterns
swung. Canvas booths bordered the sidewalks, allowing the fringe of
their red curtains to trail in the gutters. The gilded faïences, the
freshly painted bonbons and the tinsel everywhere displayed shone in the
raw light of the lamps.
There was in the atmosphere an odor of dust, of spiced cake and of
greasy waffles; the powdered girls who led reckless lives laughed and
wept beneath a hailstorm of kisses, blows and kicks. A hot and stifling
mist hung over and weighed down upon this scene of riotous joy.
Above this mist, above these noises, spread out a cloudless sky, with
pure and melancholy depths. An angel had lighted up the azure fields of
the heavens for some divine fête, some majestically calm fête of the
infinite.
Lost amid the crowd, I felt the solitude of my heart. I walked on,
following with my glances the giddy young girls who smiled upon me as
they went by, and I said to myself that I should never again see their
smiles. This thought of so many loving lips, dimly seen for an instant
and then lost forever, gave my sad soul, already tortured by my
uncertainty in regard to Laurence, an additional pang of anguish.
In this wretched frame of mind, I reached a point where a street crossed
the avenue. To the left, supported by an elm tree, stood an isolated
booth. In front of it, a few badly joined planks formed a species of
staging, and two lanterns illuminated the door, which was simply a bit
of canvas raised like a curtain. As I came to a stop, a man wearing a
magician's costume, a flowing black robe and a pointed hat sown with
stars, was haranguing the crowd from the plank platform.
"Enter," cried he, "enter my fine Messieurs, enter my beautiful
Demoiselles! I have come in hot haste from the furthest extremity of
India to make young hearts rejoice. It was there that I conquered, at
the peril of my life, the Mirror of Love, which was watched over by a
horrible dragon. My fine Messieurs, my beautiful Demoiselles, I have
brought you the realization of your dreams. Enter, enter, and see the
person who loves you! For two sous you can behold the person who loves
you!"
An old woman, clad like a bayadère, lifted the canvas door. She looked
around upon the crowd with a stupid glance; then, she cried out, in a
thick voice:
"For two sous, for two sous, you can behold the person who loves you!
Enter and see the person who loves you!"
The magician beat a furious fantaisie upon a huge drum. The bayadère
bent over a bell and accompanied him.
The people hesitated. A learned ass playing cards excited lively
interest; a Hercules lifting weights of a hundred livres each was a
spectacle of which no one would ever weary; neither is it to be denied
that a half-clad giant was made to agreeably amuse those of all ages.
But to see the person who loves you appeared to be the thing of which
the crowd thought the least, and which they imagined did not promise
them the slightest emotion.
As for me, I had eagerly listened to the summons of the man with the
flowing robe. His promises responded to the desire of my heart; I saw a
Providence in the chance which had directed my steps hither. The
miserable mountebank had acquired a singular importance in my eyes, from
the astonishment which I felt at hearing him read my most secret
thoughts. It seemed to me that I saw him fix flaming glances upon me,
beating the huge drum with a diabolical fury, crying out to me to enter
in a voice which rose above the clash of the bell.
I had placed my foot upon the first plank step when I felt myself
stopped. Turning around, I saw in front of the platform a man who had
grasped me by the coat. This man was tall and thin; he had large hands
covered by thread gloves larger still, and wore a hat which had grown
rusty, a black coat whitened at the elbows, and deplorable cashmere
pantaloons, yellow with grease and mud. He bowed almost to the ground,
in a long and exquisite reverence; then, in a soft, sweet voice, he
addressed to me this discourse:
"I am very sorry, Monsieur, that a well-bred young man like you should
set the crowd such a bad example. It is a great shame to encourage in
his impudence that wretch there, who is speculating upon our evil
instincts, for I find profoundly immoral those words screamed out in the
open air which summon the girls and the lads to mental and visual
dissipation. Ah! Monsieur, the people are weak. We, the men whom
instruction has made strong, have, believe me, grave and imperious
duties to perform. Let us not yield to culpable curiosity, let us be
worthy in all things. The morality of society depends upon us,
Monsieur."
I listened to his speech. He had not released my coat and could not
decide to finish his reverence. With his hat in his hand, he spoke with
such polite calmness that I could not think of getting angry with him. I
contented myself, when he paused, with staring him in the face without
replying. He saw a question in this silence.
"Monsieur," resumed he, with a new bow, "I am the friend of the people
and my mission is the well-being of humanity."
He uttered these words with a modest pride, suddenly lifting himself to
his full height. I turned my back upon him and mounted the platform.
Before entering, as I lifted up the canvas curtain, I looked at him
again. He had delicately taken in his right hand the fingers of his
left, striving to efface the folds of his gloves which seemed upon the
point of slipping off.
Then, folding his arms, the friend of the people tenderly contemplated
the bayadère.
I let the curtain fall and found myself within the temple. It was a sort
of long and narrow chamber, without a single chair, with walls of
canvas, lighted by a single lamp. A few persons--curious girls and lads
making a great noise--were already assembled there. Setting aside the
noise, the utmost propriety was observed: a rope, stretched across the
middle of the apartment, separated the men from the women.
The Mirror of Love, to tell the truth, consisted simply of two
looking-glasses without amalgam, one on each side of the rope, small
round glasses through which could be seen the interior of the booth. The
promised miracle was accomplished with admirable simplicity: it sufficed
to apply the right eye to one of the glasses, and beyond, without either
thunder or sulphur, appeared the loving person. Who could refuse to
believe in a vision so natural!
I did not feel the strength to try the power of the Mirror of Love
immediately after entering. I had a vague fear that I would see Marie.
As I passed into the booth, the bayadère threw a glance at me which
froze my heart. What awaited me behind that glass? Should I see
Laurence, who on the instant would change to some horrible monster, with
sunken eyes and violet lips, a terrible vampire thirsting for youthful
blood, one of those frightful creatures which I see at night in my evil
dreams?
I was afraid, brothers; I retired into a corner. To recover courage, I
looked at those who, bolder than myself, consulted destiny without so
much hesitation. I experienced a singular pleasure at the sight of those
different faces, the right eye wide open and the left closed with two
fingers, having each its smile according as the vision pleased more or
less. The glass was placed a little low; it was necessary to bend
slightly, in order to look through it. I could not imagine anything more
grotesque than the men coming up in single file to see the mates of
their souls through a circular glass a few centimètres in
circumference.
First, two soldiers advanced: a sergeant, browned by the sun of Africa,
and a young conscript, having still the odor of the fields about him,
his arms embarrassed by a cloak three times too large for him. The
sergeant gave a skeptical laugh. The conscript remained bent for a long
while, singularly flattered by having a sweetheart.
Then came a fat man in a white vest, with a red and bloated face, who
gazed tranquilly without a grimace either of joy or displeasure, as if
he thought it altogether natural that he should be loved by some one.
He was followed by three schoolboys, youths from fifteen to sixteen
years old, with brazen mien, pushing each other to make people think
that they had the honor to be intoxicated. All three of them swore that
they saw their aunts in the Mirror of Love.
Thus, brothers, the curious followed each other before the mirror, and I
cannot now recall the different expressions of countenance which struck
me then. Oh! oh! vision of the well-beloved! what rude truths you spoke
to those wide open eyes! They were the true Mirrors of Love, mirrors in
which woman's grace was reflected in a dubious light, where luxury
spread out into folly.
The girls, on the other side of the rope, amused themselves in a most
genuine fashion. I read only intense curiosity upon their faces, I did
not see the indication of the least wicked thought. They came, turn by
turn, to throw an astonished glance upon the mirror and retired, some a
trifle thoughtful, others laughing like so many fools.
To speak the truth, I know not what business I had there. If I were a
woman, provided I was pretty, I would never entertain the foolish idea
of putting myself out to go see the man who loved me. The days when my
heart should weep at being alone, if those days were days of spring and
golden sunlight, I would go into a flowery path that each passer-by
might gaze at and adore me. In the evening, I would return rich with
love.
The curious girls before me were not all equally pretty. The handsome
ones derided the science of the magician; for a long time past they had
had no need of him. The ugly ones, on the contrary, had never found
themselves at such a fête as this. There came one of these, with thin
hair and large mouth, who could not tear herself away from the magic
mirror; she kept upon her lips the joyous and heart-rending smile of a
poor wretch satisfying her hunger after a long fast.
I asked myself what fine ideas had been awakened in these foolish heads.
This was not an easy problem to solve. All of them had, without doubt,
seen in their dreams princes cast themselves at their feet; all of them
desired to become better acquainted with the lovers whom they remembered
so confusedly on awaking. There were, certainly, many deceptions;
princes are becoming rare, and the eyes of our souls, which open at
night upon a better world, are eyes much more accommodating than those
we employ during the day. There were also great delights: the dream was
realized; the lover had the handsome moustache and the black hair seen
in the vision.
Thus each one, in a few seconds, lived a life of love, innocent
romances, swift as hope, which one guessed from the blushes on the
cheeks and the quivers of the corsages.
After all, these girls were, perhaps, fools, and I was a fool myself to
have seen so many things where there was, doubtless, nothing whatever
visible. Nevertheless, I completely reassured myself by studying them.
I noticed that both men and women seemed in general thoroughly satisfied
with the apparition. The magician, certainly, had never been malicious
enough to give the least displeasure to these good folks who had paid
him two sous.
I approached, brothers; I applied, without too much emotion, my right
eye to the Mirror of Love. I perceived, between two huge red curtains, a
woman leaning against the back of an arm-chair. She was brilliantly
illuminated by lamps which I could not see, and stood out in relief
against a piece of painted canvas, stretched across the end of the
booth; this canvas, cut in places, must formerly have represented a fine
grove of blue trees!
Brothers, I saw neither Marie nor Laurence. She who loved me, according
to the magician's glass, wore, like a well-bred vision, a long white
robe slightly fastened at the waist, flowing upon the floor like a
cloud. She had across her forehead a wide veil, also white, held in
place by a crown of hawthorn flowers. Thus clad, the dear angel was all
whiteness, all innocence.
She leaned coquettishly against the back of the arm-chair, turning
towards me large, caressing blue eyes. She seemed to me superb beneath
the veil: she had flaxen tresses which were lost amid the muslin, a
frank and pure forehead, delicate lips, dimples which were nests for
kisses. At the first glance, brothers, I took her for a saint; at the
second, I saw she had the air of a good girl and was not in the least
conceited.
She lifted three fingers to her lips, and sent me a kiss, with a
courtesy which did not in the least suggest the realm of shadows.
Observing that she was not disposed to fly away, I fixed her features in
my memory and retired from the mirror.
As I was quitting the booth, I saw my acquaintance, the friend of the
people, enter. This grave moralist, who seemed to shun me, hastened to
set the bad example of culpable curiosity. His long spine, bent in a
semi-circle, shook with emotion; then, being unable to get nearer, he
kissed the magic glass.
I descended the three plank steps of the platform; I found myself again
in the crowd, decided to seek the girl who loved me now that I knew her
smile.
The lamps smoked, the tumult was increasing, the people pushed along
with such reckless haste that they nearly overturned the booths. The
fête was at that hour of ideal joy in which, in order to be happy, one
risks being suffocated.
On straightening myself up, I had before me a horizon of linen caps and
silk hats. I advanced, pushing the men, cautiously getting around the
great skirts of the women. Perhaps the girl who loved me was wrapped in
that pink cloak; perhaps her head was beneath that tulle hood ornamented
with mauve ribbons; perhaps she wore that delicious straw hat with an
ostrich feather in it. Alas! the owner of the cloak was sixty; the hood,
which concealed an abominably ugly face, leaned lovingly upon the
shoulder of a sapper; she who wore the hat was laughing heartily,
opening widely the most beautiful eyes in the world--but I did not
recognize those beautiful eyes.
Brothers, above crowds hover I know not what anguish and what sorrow, as
if the multitude had sent up a breath of terror and pity. Never do I
find myself amid a great assemblage of people without experiencing a
vague uneasiness. It seems to me that some frightful misfortune menaces
these assembled men, that a single flash of lightning will suffice, amid
the excitement of their gestures and voices, to strike them with
motionlessness, with eternal silence.
Little by little, I decreased my pace, looking at this joy which wounded
me. At the foot of a tree, in the full yellow light of the lamps, an old
beggar was standing, his body stiffened, horribly twisted by paralysis.
He lifted towards the passers-by his pale face, winking his eyes in a
lamentable fashion the better to excite pity. He gave to his limbs
sudden quivers of fever which shook him like a withered branch. The
young girls, fresh and blushing, passed laughingly before this hideous
spectacle.
Further away, at the door of an inn, two workmen were fighting. In the
struggle, the glasses had been overturned, and to see the wine flowing
over the pavement one might have thought it blood from great wounds.
The laughter seemed to me to be changed into sobs, the lights became a
vast conflagration, the crowd whirled as if stricken with terror. I
walked on, with a feeling of horrible sadness at my heart, staring at
the faces of the young girls but never finding the person who loved me.
I saw a man standing before one of the posts which bore the lamps,
considering it with a profoundly absorbed air. From his disturbed looks,
I thought he was seeking the solution of some grave problem. This man
was the friend of the people.
Having turned his head, he noticed me.
"Monsieur," said he to me, "the oil employed in fêtes like this costs
twenty sous a litre. In a litre is enough to fill twenty lamps like
those which you see there: hence each lamp consumes a sou's worth of
oil. Now, this post has sixteen rows of eight lamps each: a hundred and
twenty-eight lamps in all. Besides--follow my calculations closely--I
have counted sixty similar posts in the avenue, which makes seven
thousand six hundred and eighty lamps and, consequently, seven thousand
six hundred and eighty sous, or, in other words, three hundred and
eighty-four francs."
While speaking thus, the friend of the people gesticulated, emphasizing
the figures, bending down his tall body as if to bring himself within
the reach of my feeble understanding. When he paused, he threw himself
back triumphantly; then, he folded his arms, looking me in the face with
a penetrating air.
"Three hundred and eighty-four francs' worth of oil," cried he, putting
a pause between each syllable, "and the poor people are without bread,
Monsieur! I ask of you, and I ask it of you with tears in my eyes, if it
would not be more honorable for humanity to distribute these three
hundred and eighty-four francs among the three thousand indigent people
contained in this faubourg? Such a charitable measure would give to each
one of them about two sous and a half's worth of bread. This thought is
well calculated to make tender souls reflect, Monsieur."
Seeing that I stared at him curiously, he continued, in a drawling
voice, the while securing his gloves on his hands:
"The poor man should not laugh, Monsieur. He is altogether dishonest if
he forgets his poverty for an hour. Who then will weep over the
misfortunes of the people, if the government often gives such
saturnalias as this?"
He wiped away a tear and left me. I saw him enter the shop of a wine
merchant, where he drowned his emotion in five or six glasses of claret,
taking one after the other over the counter.
The last light of the fair had just been extinguished; the crowd had
dispersed. In the vacillating brightness of the street lamps, I now saw
wandering beneath the trees only a few dark forms, couples of belated
lovers, drunkards and sergents de ville airing their melancholy. The
booths stretched away, gray and silent, on both borders of the avenue,
like the tents of a deserted encampment.
Brothers, the morning breeze, damp with dew, imparted a quiver to the
leaves of the elm trees. The biting emanations of the evening had given
place to a delicious coolness. The softened silence, the transparent
gloom of the infinite, fell slowly from the depths of the sky, and the
fête of the stars followed the fête of the lamps. Honest people, at
last, could amuse themselves a little.
I felt myself thoroughly rejuvenated, brothers, the hour of solitude
having arrived. I walked with a firm step, ascending and descending the
neighboring streets; then, I saw a gray shadow glide along the houses.
This shadow came rapidly towards me, without seeming to see me; from the
lightness of the step and the rhythmical rustle of the garments, I
recognized a woman. She was about to run against me, when she
instinctively raised her eyes. Her visage was revealed to me by the
glimmer of a neighboring lantern, and I recognized it immediately as
belonging to the girl who loved me: she was not the immortal in the
white muslin cloud as I had seen her in the booth, but a poor daughter
of this earth clad in faded calico. In her poverty, she seemed to me
more charming than before, though pale and fatigued. I could not doubt
the evidence of my senses: I saw before me the large eyes, the caressing
lips of the vision, and, besides, I distinguished, on inspecting her
thus closely, that sweetness of the features imparted by suffering.
As she stopped for a second, brothers, I seized her hand and kissed it,
forgetting Laurence. She raised her head and smiled vaguely upon me,
without seeking to withdraw her fingers. Seeing me remain silent,
emotion having choked the words in my throat, she shrugged her shoulders
and resumed her rapid walk.
I ran after her, caught her by the arm, and walked beside her. She
laughed almost silently; then, she shivered and said, in a low voice:
"I am cold: let us hasten along."
Poor child, she was cold! Beneath her thin black shawl, her shoulders
trembled in the cool morning breeze. I said to her, gently:
"Do you know me?"
Again she raised her eyes, and, without hesitating, replied: "No."
I know not what rapid thought shot through my mind. In my turn, I
shivered.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, and said to me, in a childish voice, with a
little, careless pout:
"I am going home."
We walked along down the avenue.
I saw upon a bench two soldiers, one of whom was discoursing gravely,
while the other listened with respect. These soldiers were the sergeant
and the conscript. The sergeant, who seemed to me greatly moved, made me
a mocking salute, murmuring:
"The rich lend, sometimes, Monsieur."
The conscript, a tender and innocent soul, said to me, in a tone full of
grief:
"I had only her, Monsieur: you are stealing from me the girl who loves
me!"
I crossed the thoroughfare, and took another street.
Three youths came towards us, holding each other by the arm and singing
very loudly. I recognized the schoolboys. The little wretches had no
further need to feign intoxication. They stopped, almost bursting with
laughter; then, they followed me a few steps, crying after me, each one
in an uncertain voice:
"Ho! Monsieur, Madame is deceiving you: Madame is the person who loves
me!"
I felt a cold sweat moisten my temples. I hastened my steps in my
eagerness to flee, thinking no more of the woman I was dragging along on
my arm. At the end of the avenue, as I was about at last to quit this
accursed spot, on stepping down from the sidewalk, I ran against a man
who was sitting at his ease upon the curbstone. He was leaning his head
against a lamp-post, his face turned towards the sky, and was executing
with the aid of his fingers a very complicated calculation.
He turned his eyes, and, without moving his head from his pillow,
stammered out:
"Ah! it is you, Monsieur! You must help me to count the stars. I have
already found several millions of them, but I am afraid I have forgotten
one somewhere. The welfare of humanity, Monsieur, depends upon
statistics alone!"
A hiccough interrupted him. He resumed, with tears in his eyes:
"Do you know what a star costs? Surely, the great God has gone to vast
expense on high, and the people lack bread, Monsieur! Of what good are
those lamps up there? Can they be eaten? What is the practical
application of them, I beg of you? We have no need whatever of this
eternal fête!"
He had succeeded in turning his body around; he gazed about him with
perplexed looks, tossing his head with an indignant air. It was then
that he noticed my companion. He gave a start, and, with purple visage,
greedily stretched out his arms.
"Ah! ah!" he stuttered, "it is the person who loves me!"
The girl and I walked on a short distance.
"Listen," said she: "I am poor; I do what I can to get something to eat.
Last winter, I spent fifteen hours a day bent over my work, an honest
trade, and yet I was sometimes without bread. In the spring, I threw my
needle out of the window. I had found an occupation less fatiguing and
more lucrative.
"I dress myself every evening in white muslin. Alone in a sort of nook,
leaning against the back of an arm-chair, I have nothing to do but smile
from six o'clock until midnight. From time to time, I make a courtesy, I
send a kiss into space. For this I am paid three francs a sitting.
"Opposite me, behind a little glass enclosed in the partition, I
incessantly see an eye looking at me. Sometimes it is black, sometimes
blue. Without this eye, I should be perfectly happy; it spoils the
business for me. At times, from always finding it alone and steadily
fixed there, I am filled with wild terror, I am tempted to cry out and
flee!
"But one must work for one's living. I smile, I courtesy, I send my
kiss. At midnight, I wash off my rouge and resume my calico dress. Bah!
how many women, without being forced to do so, air their graces before a
mirror!"
By this time, we had reached the wretched abode in which this girl
dwelt. I left her at the door, and returned to my mansarde and my
misery.