lack the gaiety of the
Bal Jasmin. It was not well frequented; it gathered round its band-stand
people with shocking reputations; the sight of a man in a dress coat
would have transfixed the assembly like some blood-curdling ghost. The
ladies would have huddled together in a circle round the wearer and
gazed at him open-mouthed. He would subsequently have had to pay for the
ball's liquid refreshment. The Bal Jasmin did not employ meretricious
ornament to attract custom. A low gallery containing tables ran around
the bare hall, the balustrade being of convenient elbow height from the
floor, so that the dancers during intervals of rest could lounge and
talk with the drinkers. In the middle was a circular bandstand where
greasy musicians fiddled with perspiring zeal. At the doors a sergent de
ville stood good-humouredly and nodded to the ladies and gentlemen with
whom he had a professional acquaintance.

Everybody came to dance. If good fortune, such as a watch or a freshly
subventioned student, fell into their mouths, they swallowed it like
honest, sensible souls; but they did not make reprehensible adventure
the main object of their evening. They danced the quadrilles, not for
payment and the delectation of foreigners as at the Jardin de Paris, but
for their own pleasure. A girl kicked off your hat out of sheer kindness
of heart and animal spirits; and if you waltzed with her, she danced
with her strange little soul throbbing in her feet. There were, I say,
the most dreadfully shocking people at the Bal Jasmin; but they could
teach the irreproachable a lesson in the art of enjoyment.

As I came with Blanquette, and danced only with Blanquette, and sat with
Blanquette over bock or syrup in the gallery, the unwritten etiquette of
the place caused us to be undisturbed. Like the rest of the assembly we
enjoyed ourselves. Dancing was Blanquette's one supreme accomplishment.
Old Pere Paragot had taught her to play the zither indifferently well,
but he had made her dance divinely: and Blanquette, I may here mention
incidentally, had been my instructress in the art. Seeing her thick-set,
coarse figure, and holding your arm around her solid waist as you waited
for the bar, you would not have dreamed of the fairy lightness it
assumed the moment feet moved in time with the music. If life had been a
continuous waltz no partner of hers less awkward than a rhinoceros
could have avoided falling in love with her. But waltzes ended all t