Perhaps, since it is a question of perfection, her arms, like her bust, are a little thin, but Mireille’s statuesque divinity reappears in her legs from the hips to the feet. One lady, whose views upon questions of dress are extremely accurate, and in whose society I was lucky enough to witness this [p076] artistic exhibition, made an observation upon Mdlle. Mireille’s attire which I faithfully transmit to this pretty girl and her directors—directors of conscience and others.
An error on the part of the costumier is the cause of the apparent want of harmony in the fine proportions of Mdlle. Mireille’s figure, giving undue importance to the legs. A scarf has been draped across the hips over the salmon-coloured fleshings; it is about the width of a bath-towel, and is so inartistically puffed that its whiteness destroys the harmony of the outlines, and by its vague resemblance to the short breeches worn with trunk hose, it transforms a nude into a travesty. Above the trousers of the page one looks for the shoulders of the man, and because they are missing, Mdlle. Mireille looks too thin.
What remedy can be applied to this serious error which spoils our pleasure? There is some difficulty in the matter, I know, but it has been frequently overcome with greater skill: for instance, by the artist who designed a costume for Madame Théo, as Eve before the Fall, which won the approval of all admirers of plastic beauty, without shocking the susceptible. I shall send a photograph of Madame Théo to M. Bonnefois.
It is a sad proof of our physical decadence that beauty is no longer found allied with strength; the two qualities, formerly blended like metals in an alloy, are now entirely separated, and M. Bonnefois and M. Marseille each presides over representatives of the two attributes, which, when united, produced the most perfect types of humanity. At M. Bonnefois’s establishment beauty is cultivated without strength, and at M. Marseille’s entertainment, strength is [p077] found without beauty. Yesterday I could not stifle these painful thoughts when I took my seat on the velvet benches provided by the celebrated manager of the athletic show, to watch a wrestling match.
Full of recollections of Plutarch, one remembers that in the palestrea, Lycurgus made the young girls rub themselves with oil and contend with the Spartan ephebes; the lines of Theocritus on the fight between Castor and Pollux are haunting the lips; the eyes are full of visions of the beautiful forms of the wrestlers of the tribune—the young men of Cephissodote, so beautiful that they were taken for the sons of Niobe, of whom Apollo was jealous. One enters the canvas booth, the movable temple of the heroic Hercules, with a religious shiver, and, alas! what do you see? Stout, [p078] heavy men, their hair shining with pomatum, with abnormally developed chests—this is the glorious phalange; on the other hand, amateurs without either masks or black coats, but who are nearly all in the service of the Compagnie Lasage, men who have served their time, or porters in the Great Market. No well-bred figures, no delicate limbs. Compare these bloated Vitellii to the gods? There, my good fellows, go home to your lock-picking and your work.
Yet I remember one tragic anecdote of wrestling. It happened at the fair at Loges about fifteen years ago. We had gone into a booth to witness a fight with single-sticks between a fencing-master’s assistant from St. Germains and the proprietor of the establishment. The soldier and the mountebank evidently knew and disliked each other; they were engaged for some time, and seemed less like holding a [p079] match than settling a quarrel; a good many people had followed the soldier into the booth.
The mountebank was completely beaten. He foamed at the mouth, rolling his eyes terribly, whilst the fencing-master, swinging himself to and fro, made his cane whistle above his head.
When the applause ended, the wrestler demanded: