e of dry bread to gnaw, than a slice of meat. But I remember that
one day I slipped under one of the vans, and stole a basin of soup as my
share, which one of the clowns was carefully making for his three
learned dogs.

"'I had neither friends nor relations; I was employed on the dirtiest
jobs, like the lowest stable-help, and I was tattooed with bruises and
scars. Of the whole company, however, the one who beat me the most, who
was the least sparing of his thumps, and who continually made me suffer,
as if it gave him pleasure, was the manager and proprietor, a kind of
old, vicious brute, whom everybody feared like the plague, a miser who
was continually complaining of the receipts, who hid away the crown
pieces in his mattress, invested his money in the funds, and cut down
the salary of everybody, as far as he could.

"'His name was Rapha Ginestous. Any other child, but myself, would have
succumbed to such constant martyrdom, but I grew up, and the more I
grew, the prettier and more desirable I became, so that when I was
fifteen, men were already beginning to write love letters to me, and to
throw bouquets to me in the arena. I felt also that all the men in the
company were watching me, and were coveting me as their prey; that their
lustful looks rested on my pink tights, and followed the graceful
outlines of my body when I was posing on the rope that stretched from
one end of the circus to the other, or jumped through the paper hoops at
full gallop.

"'They were no longer the same, and spoke to me in a totally different
tone of voice.... They tried to come into my dressing-room when I was
changing my dress, and Rapha Ginestous seemed to have lost his head, and
his heart throbbed audibly when he came near me. Yes, he had the
audacity to propose bargains to me which covered my cheeks and forehead
with blushes, and which filled me with disgust, and as I felt a fierce
hatred for him, and detested him with all my soul and all my strength,
as I wished to make him suffer the tortures which he had inflicted upon
me, a hundred fold, I used him as the target at which I was constantly
aiming.

"'Instinctively, I employed every cunning perfidy, every artful
coquetry, every lie, every artifice which upsets the strongest and most
skeptical, and places them at our mercy, like submissive animals. He
loved me, he really loved me, that lascivious goat, who had never seen
anything in a woman except a soft palliasse, and an instrumen