fingers. He surrounded the head with a perfect halo of knives,
and the neck with a collar from which nobody could have

extricated himself without cutting his carotid artery, while, to
increase the difficulty, the old fellow went through the

performance without seeing, his whole face being covered with a
close mask of thick oilcloth.

Naturally, like other great artists, he was not understood by the
crowd, who confounded him with vulgar tricksters, and his mask

only appeared to them a trick the more, and a very common trick
into the bargain.

"He must think us very stupid," they said. "How could he possibly
aim without having his eyes open?"

And they thought there must be imperceptible holes in the
oilcloth, a sort of latticework concealed in the material. It was

useless for him to allow the public to examine the mask for
themselves before the exhibition began. It was all very well that

they could not discover any trick, but they were only all the
more convinced that they were being tricked. Did not the people

know that they ought to be tricked?
I had recognized a great artist in the old mountebank, and I was

quite sure that he was altogethercapable" target="_blank" title="a.无能力的；不能的">incapable of any trickery. I
told him so, while expressing my admiration to him; and he had

been touched by my open admiration and above all by the justice I
had done him. Thus we became good friends, and he explained to

me, very modestly, the real trick which the crowd do not
understand, the eternal trick contained in these simple words:

"To be gifted by nature and to practice every day for long, long
years."

He had been especially struck by the certainty which I expressed
that any trickery must become impossible to him. "Yes," he said

to me; "quite impossible! Impossible to a degree which you cannot
imagine. If I were to tell you! But where would be the use?"

His face clouded over, and his eyes filled with tears. I did not
venture to force myself into his confidence. My looks, however,

were not so discreet as my silence, and begged him to speak; so
he responded to their mute appeal.

"After all," he said; "why should I not tell you about it? You
will understand me." And he added, with a look of sudden

ferocity: "She understood it, at any rate!"
"Who?" I asked.

"My strumpet of a wife," he replied. "Ah! Monsieur, what an
abominable creature she was--if you only knew! Yes, she

understood it too well, too well, and that is why I hate her so;
even more on that account, than for having deceived me. For that

is a natural fault, is it not, and may be pardoned? But the other
thing was a crime, a horrible crime."

The woman, who stood against the wooden target every night with
her arms stretched out and her finger extended, and whom the old

mountebank fitted with gloves and with a halo formed of his
knives, which were as sharp as razors and which he planted close

to her, was his wife. She might have been a woman of forty, and
must have been fairly pretty, but with a perverse prettiness; she

had an impudent mouth, a mouth that was at the same time sensual
and bad, with the lower lip too thick for the thin, dry upper

lip.
I had several times noticed that every time he planted a knife in

the board, she uttered a laugh, so low as scarcely to be heard,
but which was very significant when one heard it, for it was a

hard and very mocking laugh. I had always attributed that sort of
reply to an artifice which the occasion required. It was

intended, I thought, to accentuate the danger she incurred and
the contempt that she felt for it, thanks to the sureness of the

thrower's hands, and so I was very much surprised when the
mountebank said to me:

"Have you observed her laugh, I say? Her evil laugh which makes
fun of me, and her cowardly laugh which defies me? Yes, cowardly,

because she knows that nothing can happen to her, nothing, in
spite of all she deserves, in spite of all that I ought to do to

her, in spite of all that I WANT to do to her."
"What do you want to do?"

"Confound it! Cannot you guess? I want to kill her."
"To kill her, because she has--"

"Because she has deceived me? No, no, not that, I tell you again.
I have forgiven her for that a long time ago, and I am too much

accustomed to it! But the worst of it is that the first time I
forgave her, when I told her that all the same I might some day

have my revenge by cutting her throat, if I chose, without
seeming to do it on purpose, as if it were an accident, mere

awkwardness--"
"Oh! So you said that to her?"

"Of course I did, and I meant it. I thought I might be able to do
it, for you see I had the perfect right to do so. It was so

simple, so easy, so tempting! Just think! A mistake of less than
half an inch, and her skin would be cut at the neck where the

jugular vein is, and the jugular would be severed. My knives cut
very well! And when once the jugular is cut--good-bye. The blood

would spurt out, and one, two, three red jets, and all would be
over; she would be dead, and I should have had my revenge!"

"That is true, certainly, horribly true!"
"And without any risk to me, eh? An accident, that is all; bad

luck, one of those mistakes which happen every day in our
business. What could they accuse me of? Whoever would think of

accusing me, even? Homicide through imprudence, that would be
all! They would even pity me, rather than accuse me. 'My wife! My

poor wife!' I should say, sobbing. 'My wife, who is so necessary
to me, who is half the breadwinner, who takes part in my

performance!' You must acknowledge that I should be pitied!"
"Certainly; there is not the least doubt about that."

"And you must allow that such a revenge would he a very nice
revenge, the best possible revenge which I could have with

assured impunity."
"Evidently that is so."

"Very well! But when I told her so, as I have told you, and more
forcibly still; threatening her as I was mad with rage and ready

to do the deed that I had dreamed of on the spot, what do you
think she said?"

"That you were a good fellow, and would certainly not have the
atrocious courage to--"

"Tut! tut! tut! I am not such a good fellow as you think. I am
not frightened of blood, and that I have proved already, though

it would be useless to tell you how and where. But I had no
necessity to prove it to her, for she knows that I am capable of

a good many things; even of crime; especially of one crime."
"And she was not frightened?"

"No. She merely replied that I could not do what I said; you
understand. That I could not do it!"

"Why not?"
"Ah! Monsieur, so you do not understand? Why do you not? I have I

not explained to you by what constant, long, daily practice I
have learned to plant my knives without seeing what I am doing?"

"Yes, well, what then?"
"Well! Cannot you understand what she has understood with such

terrible results, that now my hand would no longer obey me if I
wished to make a mistake as I threw?"

"Is it possible?"