THE BOHEMIAN TAKES OFF HIS BANDAGE

At last, peering in slowly between the curtains, a face emerged, furrowed by wrinkles, expanding in a grin both of mirth and distress, and bespeckled with black patches; there followed the figure of a lanky Pierrot made of three badly jointed parts, screwed up by some awful colic, and who, with excess of caution and fear, advanced on tiptoes, his hands entangled in long dandling sleeves which swept the track.

I could not to-day reconstruct the plot of his dumb show. I remember only that, as soon as he entered the arena, in spite of vain and hopeless efforts to keep his feet, he fell. It was useless getting up again; he could not help it; he fell. He never ceased falling. He entangled himself in between four chairs all at once. He dragged after him, in his fall, a huge table which had been brought into the arena. At last he managed to measure his length beyond the barrier, at the very feet of the spectators. Two handy men, enticed with much trouble out of the audience, then dragged him by the feet and after tremendous efforts stood him up. And at each fall he uttered a little scream, each time different, a little unbearable scream, in which distress and satisfaction had an equal share. At the climax, perched on a scaffolding of chairs, he dropped in a very long slow fall, and his piercing, melancholy hoot of triumph lasted as long as the fall and was mingled with shrieks of fear from the women.

During the second part of his show, though I do not know why, I recall ‘poor wobbly Pierrot’ producing a little sawdust doll from his sleeves and acting with her a long tragi-comical scene. He ended it all by emptying the sawdust of her body out of her mouth. Then, with little pitiful cries, he filled her with porridge, and at the moment when all were attentive and the gaping spectators had their eyes fixed on Pierrot’s daughter, bursting and sticky--suddenly catching hold of her by one arm, he hurled her flying across the audience at the face of Jasmin Delouche whose ear she messed before she landed on Madame Pignot’s bosom, just under that lady’s chin. The baker-woman shrieked so loud, drew herself back so sharply, and all her neighbours imitated her so well that the bench broke and the baker-woman, Fernande, sad widow Delouche, and twenty others tumbled down, legs in the air, amidst laughter, shrieks, and clapping, while the tall clown, who had fallen on his face, got up to bow and say:

‘Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, we beg to thank you for your kind attention!’

But at that very moment and in the midst of the uproar, Admiral Meaulnes, who had kept silent since the beginning of the dumb show, and seemed every moment more absorbed, hastily got up and clinging to my arm, as if unable to contain himself, said aloud to me: ‘Look at the bohemian! Look! Now, I recognise him.’

Even before looking, as if all the while, subconsciously, this thought had been dormant in me, only awaiting the moment to dawn, I too had guessed! Standing by one of the naphtha flares, at the door of the caravan, the young unknown actor had taken off his bandage and thrown a cloak over his shoulders. One could see by the smoking flare, as once by candlelight in the room at the manor, the clean-shaven features, very fine and aquiline. Pale, his lips half open, he was hastily turning over the leaves of a small red album, most likely a pocket atlas. Except for a scar cutting across his temple and disappearing under the mass of hair, it was, just as Admiral Meaulnes had minutely described him to me, the fiancé from the unknown manor.

It was evident that he had taken off his bandage to be recognised by us. But scarcely had Meaulnes made his gesture and uttered his cry than the young man went into the caravan after giving us a knowing look and smiling with vague sadness, as he usually smiled. ‘And the other!’ said Meaulnes with excitement; ‘how was it I didn’t recognise him straightaway! He is the Pierrot of the fête, out there....’

And he walked down the tiers to go towards him. But already Booby had cut off all access to the track and, one by one, was putting out the four flares; we were obliged to follow the crowd, which in the dim light, and through the narrow channels of the parallel benches, streamed slowly out while we stamped about with impatience.

When at last Admiral Meaulnes was outside, he hastened to the caravan, rushed up the steps, and knocked at the door, but all was already secured for the night. Already, no doubt, in the van with the curtains as well as in the one reserved for the pony, the goat, and the performing birds, every one was tucked up and falling asleep.