Saturday was the fashionable night at the _Cirque Parisien_, and the
night when Jules usually attended it. This was Tuesday, however, and
Jules decided not to be fashionable, but simply to amuse himself. As he
approached the letters of light that flashed the name of the _Cirque_
into the eyes of the _boulevardiers_, he suddenly remembered that he had
promised to meet two of his comrades of the wool-house in the evening.
He turned into the _rue Taitbout_, and as he was walking slowly through
the long passageway leading into one of the large apartment-houses
there, he felt himself suddenly seized in the darkness by two pairs of
hands. He looked quickly around, and dimly recognized Dufresne and
Leroux, who had come up from behind him. They were both types, short and
swarthy, with oily faces, thick black moustaches, and pointed beards.
"Why didn't you come before?" and "We've been waiting an hour," they
cried together.
"He's been up to some adventure, I'll wager," said Leroux.
"Answer! The truth! No lies!" Dufresne exclaimed, shaking him by one
shoulder.
Jules pulled away with an effort.
"I thought you were going to rob me!" he laughed.
"You see, he doesn't answer," said Dufresne. "I told you he was up to
some adventure."
"Up to some adventure!" Jules repeated. "I've just been taking dinner,
and I forgot I'd promised to meet you to-night. Where are you going?"
"We're going to the _Folies Bergeres_, and then to a masked ball in
Montmartre," Leroux answered, resuming his grip. "Come along."
Jules pulled away with a laugh.
"Thanks. Not to-night. I don't feel like it. Besides, I'm not dressed."
"But _we're_ not dressed," they cried together, throwing open their
coats. "You won't have to dress. Come on."
Jules shook his head decidedly.
"No," he insisted, "it's all very well for you young bucks. I'm too old.
It tires me out for the next day; can't do my work. I think I'll look in
at the Circus. Come along with me."
They scoffed at the idea of going to the Circus, and tried to persuade
him to accompany them, since he had kept them waiting so long. But he
resisted, and, as he turned away from them, they clutched at him again,
but he escaped, laughing, into the street, and he saw them shaking their
fists after him. Those two "boys," as he called them, were always trying
to drag him into their escapades. They looked so much alike that at the
office they were called "the twins," and they were always getting into
scrapes and into debt together.
Before buying his ticket for the Circus, Jules looked carefully over the
program on the posters in the long entrance. Some of the performers he
had already seen and the names of a few of them were unfamiliar to him.
One name was printed in larger letters than the others--Mademoiselle
Blanche. Jules read the paragraph printed below, announcing Mademoiselle
Blanche as the most marvellous acrobat in the world, and proclaiming
that, in addition to giving her act on the trapeze, she would plunge
backward from the top of the theatre, a height of more than seventy-five
feet, into a net below. Jules smiled, and felt a thrill of his old
boyish excitement at the prospect of seeing the feat performed.
When he turned to buy his ticket, he noticed a large photograph on an
easel, standing near the box-office. The name of Mademoiselle Blanche,
printed under it, attracted him. The acrobat, her long sinuous limbs
encased in white tights, was suspended in mid-air, one arm bent at the
elbow, clinging to a trapeze. The tense muscles of the arm made a
curious contrast with the expression of the face, which was marked by
unusual simplicity and gentleness. The profile was clear, the curving
eyelashes were delicately outlined, and the eyes were large and dark.
Something about the lines of the small mouth attracted Jules. He studied
the picture carefully to discover what it was. The whole expression of
the face seemed to him to be concentrated in the mouth; he felt sure
that the teeth were small and very white, and the woman's voice was soft
and musical. The face differed from the ordinary types of performers he
had seen; it reminded him of the faces of some of the girls in the
convent of Beauvais, where his mother had once taken him to visit his
cousin. The woman must be clever to make herself up so attractively. He
wondered if the appearance of youth that she presented was also due to
her cleverness. She might easily pass for twenty. Her figure looked
marvellously supple; she had probably been trained for the circus from
infancy, and she might be fifty years old.
He decided not to buy a seat, but to go into the balcony where he could
walk about and look down at the performance. If it bored him, he could
rest on one of the velvet-cushioned seats till a new "turn" began. He
found more people in the balcony than he had ever seen there before; as
a rule they made only a thin fringe around the railing; now they were
five and six deep. He established himself beside a post where he could
catch glimpses of the arena and get a support, and there he remained for
half an hour.
To-night, however, the antics of the clown, the phenomenal intelligence
of the performing dogs, even the agility of the Schaeffer family of
acrobats, did not interest him. He was impatient to see Mademoiselle
Blanche. Her name stood last on the program; she was probably reserved
for a crowning attraction. Jules dropped on one of the velvet cushions,
and rested there for another half-hour. Then some knife-throwing
attracted him, and he slowly worked his way through the crowd to a place
where he could look down at the performers. The knife-throwing was
followed by an exhibition of trick-riding, which preceded the acrobat's
appearance.
Before this appearance took place, however, there was a long wait caused
by the preparations made for the great plunge. A thick rope was
suspended from one of the beams that supported the roof of the building,
and under it a net was spread. Then the half-dozen trapezes that had
been tied to the walls, were loosened, and as they swung in the air and
the band played, Mademoiselle Blanche, in white silk tights, with two
long strips of white satin ribbon dangling from her throat, ran into the
ring, and bowed in response to the applause of the crowd.
Jules Le Baron drew a long breath. The long supple limbs, the firm white
arms and throat, the pale oval face, framed in dark hair that curled
around the forehead, created a kind of beauty that seemed almost
ethereal. The glamour of youth was over her, too; she could not be, at
most, more than twenty. As she ran up the little rope ladder to the net
and climbed hand over hand along the rope to one of the trapezes, Jules
thought he had never seen such grace, such exquisite sureness of
movement and agility. After reaching the trapeze, she sat there for a
moment, smiling and rubbing her hands. Then she began to swing gently,
and a moment later she shot through the air to another trapeze several
feet away, and from that she passed on to the others with a bewildering
swiftness.
Jules had never seen a woman perform alone on the trapeze before, and
this exhibition of skill and resource fascinated him. The feats were
nearly all new, and some of them of unusual difficulty. When the girl
had finished her performance on the trapeze she returned to the rope,
and began to pose on it, twisting it around her waist, and hanging
suspended with her arms in the air. In this way she rolled gently down
to the net.
The event of the evening was yet to come, however. After resting for a
moment, Mademoiselle Blanche seized the rope again, and, hand over hand,
she climbed to the top of the building; there she sat on a beam, so far
from the audience that she seemed much smaller than she really was. The
ring-master, a greasy-looking Frenchman in evening dress, appeared in
the arena and commanded silence.
"Mademoiselle Blanche must have perfect quiet," he cried, "in order to
perform her great feat. The least noise might disturb her, and cause her
death."
Jules smiled at this speech; it was very clever, he thought. Of course,
it was made merely to impress the audience. He wondered how Mademoiselle
Blanche felt at that moment, perched up there so quietly, ready to hurl
herself into the air. He did not have time to think much about this, for
as he strained his eyes toward her, the signal for the fall was given,
the white figure plunged backward, spun to earth, landed with a
tremendous thump in the padded net, bounded into the air again, and
Mademoiselle Blanche was bowing and kissing her fingers.
For a moment not a sound was heard. Then the audience burst into
applause, and Jules Le Baron breathed. He felt as if his heart had
stopped beating. He had never seen such a thrilling exhibition before.
All his old delight in the circus had come back to him. As he walked out
with the crowd, he congratulated himself on not having gone with
Dufresne and Leroux. He would not have missed his evening for a dozen
balls in Montmartre!
At the door he met Roger Durand, dramatic critic of the _Jour_. He had
known Durand as a boy, and they had continued on a footing of
half-hostile friendship.
"So you've come to see the new sensation?" said the journalist, as they
shook hands.
"Just by chance," Jules replied. "I've never been more surprised in my
life. Who is she?"
"That's just what I haven't been able to find out. I've been talking
about her tonight with old Reju--he's the man who makes the
engagements--but he didn't seem to know much more about her than I did.
He said he first heard of her in Bucharest. She made a hit there, too,
some time last year."
"But she's French, isn't she? Parisian?"
"She's French, but Reju says she isn't Parisian--comes from the
provinces somewhere. There's a woman goes about with her, her mother, I
suppose. Reju says mamma keeps her down here," the journalist added with
a smile, making a significant gesture with his thumb. "Mamma gets all
the money, and Mademoiselle does all the work."
Jules shrugged his shoulders. "Going to your office?" he said. "You have
to turn night into day, haven't you?"
"My dear fellow, night is the best part of life. Days were made for
sleep. We've got mixed up, that's all, and only a few of us are clever
enough to find it out. Come and have a glass of absinthe with me before
I go back."
Jules shook his head.
"Some other time. A glass of absinthe would spoil me for to-morrow. _Au
revoir._"
He was glad to be alone again so that he might think over the evening.
The beautiful figure whirling through the air still haunted him.
"Mademoiselle Blanche!" The name seemed to sing in his mind. He wondered
what her real name was. So she had a mother who kept her under her
thumb! Then he wondered what she was like out of the circus--ignorant
and vulgar, probably, like the rest of them. Yet in her looks she was
certainly different from the rest. At any rate, he must go and see her
performance again. He would go several times.