The Grip of Desire | Page 7

the depth of the little room where the fair dancer,
stripped of her tights, appeared to him half-naked.]
[Illustration]
The house on wheels was only a few paces away, silent, motionless,
crammed up. Within those ten feet of planks was perceptible an excess
of lives, passions, miseries, joys, of comedies and dramas; quite a
world in miniature.
Breathings and rustlings issued now and then from this living coffin. It

wan the heavy slumber of fatigue, of fever, or of drink.
One window was lighted still, and the half-drawn curtain allowed a
room to be seen the size of a sentry-box.
He passed slowly by, and gave a look.
A strange emotion seized him: he would have wished not to have seen,
and he felt full of a delicious trouble at having seen.
He looked round him with alarm; he was quite alone. No one had
detected him, no one could have detected him, plunging his burning
gaze into the depth of the little room where the fair dancer, stripped of
her tights, appeared to him half-naked and dazzling like a goddess of
Rubens.

VII.
THE SALUTE.
"She is fair, she is white, and her golden hair Sweetly frames her rosy
face: The limpid look of her azure eyes Beguiles near as much as her
half-closed lip."
N. CHANNARD (Poésies inédites).
The next day, from break of dawn, the strolling players were already
making their preparations for departure.
He saw the fair dancer again.
No longer had she on her gauze dress with golden spangles, nor the
tights which displayed her shape, nor her glittering diadem, nor the
imitation pearls in her hair. She had resumed her poor dress of printed
cotton, her darned stockings and her coarse shoes; but there was still
her blue eye with its strange light, her pleasant face, her silky hair
falling in thick tresses on her sunburnt neck, and beneath her cotton

bodice the figure of an empress was outlined with the same opulence.
A knot of women was there, laughing and talking scandal. What were
these stupid peasants laughing at?
At length the heavy vehicle began to move, drawn by two
broken-winded horses.
The fair girl is at the little window and watches, inquisitive and smiling,
the silly scoffing crowd.
"Pass on, daughter of Bohemia, and despise these men who jest at your
poverty, these women who cast a look of scorn and hate. They scorn
and hate you, because they have not your splendid hair, nor the
brightness of your eyes, nor your white teeth, nor your fresh smile, nor
your suppleness, grace and vigour, nor your bewitching shape; despise
them in your turn, but envy them not, them who despise and envy you."
Thus the Curé murmured to himself as the carriage was passing by.
She is there still at her little window, like a youthfull picture by Greuze.
She lifts her eyes and recognizes the priest, and bows with that smile
which has already so affected him. What grace in that simple gesture!
What promises in those gentle eyes! In the midst of the hostile scornful
looks of that foolish crowd she has met a friendly face; she has read
sympathy and perhaps a secret admiration on the intelligent
countenance of the priest.
The Curé replied to her salute, and for a long while his gaze pursued
the carriage.
Meanwhile the good ladies whispered among themselves, and said to
one another with a scandalized air: "Did you see? He bowed to the
mountebank!"

VIII.

THE FEVER.
"Who has not had those troubled nights, when the storm rages within,
when the soul, miserably oppressed with shameful desires, floats in the
mud of a swamp?"
MICHELET (L'Amour).
He was quite aware of his imprudence, but was unable to withdraw his
eyes from the road, and his thoughts still followed the carriage long
after it had disappeared behind the tall poplars. It seemed to him that it
was a portion of himself which was going away for ever.
What! was the madman then beginning to cast his heart thus on the
roads, and could he feel smitten by this creature whom he had scarcely
met?
No, it was not she whom he loved, but she had just made the over-full
cup run over. She or another, it was indifferent to him. His altered
feelings of desire needed at length to drink freely. He was thirsty, what
signified to him the vessel?
Hitherto he had only felt that ordinary confusion which the chaste man
experiences in presence of the woman, for hitherto his sight bad only
paused complacently upon pretty fresh faces, and if his thought
wandered beyond, he drove it back with care to his very inmost being;
but now that he had seen the naked breast of a pretty girl, that he had
relished