Connecticut western news., 1899-01-19
A CLOWNS HATE.

That evening there was a great con- course of people on the Place de la Liberte. The Rosati circus was giving its last performance, and the public of Toulon was fiocking to this farewell representation. At the doors beneath the f1ickering gleam of the rows of gas lights there was ceaseless crush and movement-an endless line was slowly winding its way ill, halting at every step and hammering the sounding blanks with a confused chatter. All around on the notice boards stuck in the ground the colors of the flaming posters were displayed and, bathed in the garish light, dazzled the eye. In the crowd of spectators and idlers every one was reading aloud the placard which stood conspicuous in front:
 Positively the last time this even. ing. Last performances of Prince Icarus, the flying man, of Mile. Rita and of 4Esop, the grasshopper clown.'' Within the circus the seats were al- ready overfiowing, and the same names repeated from mouth to mouth blended into general murmur deadened by the canvas roof over the ring. Some of the circus men were raking the sawdust on the track, and above the door to the stables the musicians were languidly tuning their instruments or at times addressing friends who passed beneath the gallery. "That you? Marius, how goes it?" etc. In the upper rows the audience was alive with impatience for the expected spectacle and irritated by the passing of the young fashionable first nighters' s'-envied frequenters be- hind the scenes-who pressed in a crowd to the narrow entrance leading to the greenroom.
 Officers in civilian dress and students, ship brokers and idle dandies, all wish ed for the last time to get near the fair Mile. Rita, the celebrated equestrienne, who for a month had been the subject of conversation in every messroom and every club. They stepped along, the el- bowed and he elbowers, between the walls that were covered with sets of vanished harness and begged pardon every time they jostled groom. They stopped at the stalls of Blue Devil and Djinn, the two trick Arabians, and un- der pretext of giving some sugar to the horses futtered about the extemporized dressing room where Rita, tranquil and smiling, was donning her attire. Then came in succession the commonplace compliments, to which the star of the circus unheeding. scarcely deigned to give an answer, without seeming to note the ardent gaze of her admirers. She was a handsome girl, careless gypsy, with the sun in her eyes and her blood, accustomed to the atmosphere of admiration, and she finished her toilet without hurrying. At times, however, impatiently, and with a pretty, rebel lious movement, she gave her shoulders a shake and made the pearls of her necklace rattle. It was when the little clown Esop, her husband, who, all be- f1oured and painted, was walking before the room, his huge topknots swaying at every step, drew near, and with his sharp falsetto voice launched some taunt at the artists courtiers. They laughed, they even applauded, but more often they lowered their eyes before the cutting, cold gaze of the dwarf, whose wan and grotesque face, in spite of the smile of his blood red and too large lips, seemed at some moments to be fraught with evil.
 This evening the manikin was in a worse humor than usual. His jeers were more biting and more bitter and beneath the coat of flour covering his scanned features he appeared not pale, but livid. ha6 Ch ill them and never left Rita, who, gayly posed before her mirror, was having her bodice laced by the handsome gymnast | Icarus.
 | In the circus the orchestra was finish ing waltz by Metra. The curious were gradually quitting the stable and re- turning to their places. The sharp cuts of the ringmaster's whip were cracking | in the arena. The show had begun. Icarus placed last rose in the hair of the equestrienne and ran to chalk her shoes. He stumbled against his dwarfish comrade.
 1 The clown seemed very busy in exam ming the gas meter and pushed him away with an oath. Then without more ado the acrobat sent him reeling and, leaping on a ladder, cried, with laugh, "Out of the way, you pitiful pygmyr"
 Esop uttered roar of rage and an- ger; then, suddenly calming himself, re- turned to the meter and, after having followed with an eye of hatred the as- cent of Icarus, began fumbling with the mechanism of the stopcocks.
 A great clapping of hands, frantic ovation. Two hundred pretty women dropped their fans and leveled their opera glasses and, tri6e pale, smiled with delicious dread. Icarus was up there-high up at the top of the circus hanging to the last trapeze and turn ing over and over in it, slowly and with | out all effort
 At times he paused, and his face was seen radiant in the foolish pride of tri- umph. Below in the ring the clowns were stretching circular net, and in all tho circus reigned deep silence, broken only by feminine whisper |: "How graceful! What.a handsome fel
 lowF"
 The gymnast then, finding his public sufficiently warmed up, raised himself at one pull, stiffening himself on his wrists.
 The trapeze, violently thrown back, described great arc, and, letting go the bar, the man shot forward like an arrow into space.
 There was feeling of apprehension in the crowd and an "OhF" of alright
 uttered by a thousand breasts. The aero
 bat reached the second trapeze and
 calmly let himself swing in its decreas-
 ing oscillations.
 0i>@-l- h~ thns darted II times.