“My revenge! take a belt!”
A woman intervened—a tall dark girl, a gipsy, who had juggled before us with weights and knives.
“Do not fight,” she cried to the soldier in a voice full of pain. “He is furious! he will hurt you!”
The mountebank sneered:
“Madame fears that I might break you! Are you a man?”
The soldier turned white. He was a tall lissom man, but he did not look strong. However, he quietly unbuttoned the waistcoat that he had put on, and picked up the belt.
The other waited, his arms crossed, a smile on his lips.
They grasped each other, but the struggle did not last long. The soldier was immediately thrown underneath the other; the mountebank put one knee on his neck, seized his head with both hands, and turned it completely round. We heard a crack. The soldier uttered a horrible cry—the wrestler had broken his neck like a rabbit’s back. I did not want to see any more and rushed out, whilst the crowd threw itself upon the mountebank. But in the evening an accidental turn in my walk brought me in front of the booth.
In the midst of all the gaiety, of songs, of meals in the [p080] open air, of the illuminations and noise of the shows, the wrestler’s booth, silent and closed, was the only dark spot in the fair. An indistinct form cowered on the wooden steps. I went a little nearer to it. It was the gipsy, the juggler with weights. She was sobbing bitterly, her head buried in her apron—weeping for the prisoner or for the dead.
