d in and out like a snake, sometimes
nearer and sometimes farther away, according to the motions of the
performers. The two women, whose lower limbs seemed to be attached to
their bodies by rubber springs, were making wonderful and surprising
motions with their legs. Their partners hopped and skipped about, waving
their arms about. One could imagine their panting breath beneath their
masks.

One of them, who had taken his place in the most famous quadrille, as
substitute for an absent celebrity, the handsome "Songe-au-Gosse," was
trying to keep up with the tireless "Arete-de-Veau" and was making
strange fancy steps which aroused the joy and sarcasm of the audience.

He was thin, dressed like a dandy, with a pretty varnished mask on his
face. It had a curly blond mustache and a wavy wig. He looked like a wax
figure from the Musee Grevin, like a strange and fantastic caricature of
the charming young man of fashion plates, and he danced with visible
effort, clumsily, with a comical impetuosity. He appeared rusty beside
the others when he tried to imitate their gambols: he seemed overcome by
rheumatism, as heavy as a great Dane playing with greyhounds. Mocking
bravos encouraged him. And he, carried away with enthusiasm, jigged about
with such frenzy that suddenly, carried away by a wild spurt, he pitched
head foremost into the living wall formed by the audience, which opened
up before him to allow him to pass, then closed around the inanimate body
of the dancer, stretched out on his face.

Some men picked him up and carried him away, calling for a doctor. A
gentleman stepped forward, young and elegant, in well-fitting evening
clothes, with large pearl studs. "I am a professor of the Faculty of
Medicine," he said in a modest voice. He was allowed to pass, and he
entered a small room full of little cardboard boxes, where the still
lifeless dancer had been stretched cut on some chairs. The doctor at
first wished to take off the mask, and he noticed that it was attached in
a complicated manner, with a perfect network of small metal wires which
cleverly bound it to his wig and covered the whole head. Even the neck
was imprisoned in a false skin which continued the chin and was painted
the color of flesh, being attached to the collar of the shirt.

All this had to be cut with strong scissors. When the physician had slit
open this surprising arrangement, from the shoulder to the temple, he
opened this armor and found the face o