eating the call, and the hoarse
voice of the clown announcing "a grand acrobatic spectacle, accompanied
with dances and followed by a pantomime."

Involuntarily the Cure's thought turned to the stranger; he went upstairs
into his study and behind his half-closed shutters he could take part in
the spectacle.

As he expected, the pretty girl was there, and seen from this distance in
the night, half-lighted by a few smoky lamps, with her little bodice of
velvet, her gauze skirt spangled with gold, her flesh-coloured tights, she
was really charming. At that moment she was dancing, with wonderful
lightness and grace, some lascivious fandango, while she accompanied
herself with the castanets.

She was smiling at the crowd, delighting in the effect which she knew how
to produce with her sparkling eye and her white teeth and her rosy lips,
and the Cure was intoxicated by that smile. Then he cast his eyes over the
rough crowd, and ha was grieved at so much cost for such an audience:
_Margaritas ante porcos_, he murmured, _Margaritas ante porcos_.

In order to admire her better, he had taken a field-glass and lost none of
her gestures.

Her bosom was boldly bared, and he feasted his eyes upon the sweet furrow
of her breasts, he followed the delicious outline of her leg, and found his
heart melting before the undulating movements of her graceful bust and her
sturdy hips.

He abruptly left the window, took up a book at random and tried to read.

But this was in vain; his eyes only were reading, his thoughts were
elsewhere; they were in the market-place which was in frolic with the
dancer.

He wished to stop this libertine thought; he read aloud: "The fall is great
after great efforts. The soul risen so high in heroism and holiness falls
very heavily to the earth.... Sick and embittered it plunges into evil with
a savage hunger, as though to avenge itself for having believed."

At another time, he would have said: "It is a warning." But he saw not the
warning, he only saw the dancer, and he murmured: "How beautiful is she!"

He took the hundred paces round his table; but his body only was there, his
thoughts always were hovering on the market-place round the spangled
petticoat.

He returned to the window. All was over; the lamps were put out, the crowd
was slowly dispersing; five or six inquisitive ones were standing round the
heavy carriage of the company, from which some gleam of light escaped.

He remained a long ti