“Not at all. I did not come near dying.”
This proposition was not further pressed. But as we were going back to the house at the dinner hour he stood still, saying:
“That was a good thing, Martinod! I their candidate? Insane!”
He laughed again with all his heart. A little further on he repeated,
“I, their candidate!”
This time he did not laugh. I understood that all the same he was not displeased with Martinod’s suggestion.
II
THE CIRCUS
MY attention was distracted from these election concerns by the circus which had been set up in the Market Place. Its immense white tent, at last secured in place by solid pegs, bore above the entrance curtain, in letters of gold against a blue background, the inscription Marinetti’s Circus. A drummer plied his drumsticks at short intervals to attract the attention of the public, and from time to time the portière was raised and a princess in a spangled robe and rose-coloured stockings emerged like an apparition. I used to pass that way on my return from school, merely to hear that unceasing drum and to see that lady, who was sometimes old and sometimes very young. How I longed to get inside the tent! I indulged my desire for this forbidden paradise by lingering as long as possible and then speeding away at my best pace, so as not to be late at home.
Once I made the circuit of the tent and got “behind the scenes.” The waggon-houses were drawn up side by side at the back. Thick smoke was pouring from their slender chimneys—as if from green wood, and from the odour some witch’s broth must have been in course of preparation. Several raw-boned horses were wandering at liberty, as if they had not the strength to go far, under the indulgent watch of dogs whose indolence reassured me. A parroquet was fluttering from roof to roof. On the steps of one waggon a woman was sitting clothed in rags which unblushingly revealed her amber skin, combing her hair in the sun; the black mass which she drew forward cast a shadow over all her face, hiding it from me, though it alone interested me. A bronzed old fellow was smoking his pipe with a majesty like that of the old shepherd in his russet mantle, walking before his sheep with even pace toward the mountain. Some half-naked children, brown and curly-headed, crawling among the waggons, were hustling one another, exchanging thumps, when suddenly a door opened and out bounced a termagant, holding a stewpan in her left hand and with her right restoring peace by means of a few sound slaps.
This spectacle in no way cooled my curiosity. Has the wrong side of a theatre ever cooled the interest of amateurs or the zeal of actors? What was not my delight then when grandfather, returning from a walk, proposed to take me inside. I imagine he was going in on his own account and was far from suspecting my longings.