ails, their gray skin
tights and their velvet breeches, these female dancers twisted, jumped,
hopped and drew their lascivious and voluptuous circle more closely
round _Chocolat_, who shook the red skirts of his coat, rolled his eyes,
and showed his large, white teeth in a foolish smile, as if he were the
prey of irresistible desire, and yet terribly afraid of what might
happen, and Lord Shelley taking some grapes out of a basket that Noele
de Frejus offered him, said: "It is not a very cheerful story, but then
true stories rarely are. At the time when he was still unknown, and when
he used to have to tighten his belt more frequently than he got enough
to eat and drink, James Stirling followed the destinies of a circus
which traveled with its vans from fair to fair and from place to place,
and fell in love with a gipsy columbine, who also formed part of this
wandering, half starved company.

"She was not twenty, and astonished the others by her rash boldness, her
absolute contempt for danger and obstacles, and her strange and adroit
strength. She charmed them also by a magic philter which came from her
hair, which was darker that a starless night, from her large, black,
coaxing, velvety eyes, that were concealed by the fringe of such long
lashes that they curled upwards, from her scented skin, that was as
soft as rice paper, and every touch of which was a suggestive and
tempting caress, from her firm, full, smiling, childlike mouth, which
uttered nothing but laughter, jokes, and love songs, and gave promise of
kisses.

"She rode bare-backed horses, without bit or bridle, stretched herself
out on their backs, as if on a bed, and mingled her disheveled hair with
their manes, swaying her supple body to their most impetuous movements,
and at other times standing almost on their shoulders or on the crupper,
while she juggled with looking-glasses, brass balls, knives that flashed
as they twirled rapidly round in the smoky light of the paraffin lamps
that were fastened to the tent poles.

"Her name was _Sacha_, that pretty Slavonic name which has such a sweet
and strange sound, and she gave herself to him entirely, because he was
handsome, strong, and spoke to women very gently, like one talks to
quite little children, who are so easily frightened, and made to cry,
and it was on her account that in a quarrel in Holland he knocked down
an Italian wild beast tamer, by a blow between the two eyes.

"They adored each other so,