Love of Seven Dolls Read Online Free PDF

the sentiments expressed by bis creations, for they were completely foreign to him.
    Yet the habit of the puppet booth grew and when the war ended and he returned to France, Michel Peyrot became Capitaine Coq, and with Golo, whom he had found starving in the prison camp, as slave, orchestra and factotum took to the road.
    The last night of the fair outside the Port Neuilly in Paris, it had been the experienced and cynical eye of Capitaine Coq that had instantly detected the despairing shoulder slope and the blind, suicide walk of the unhappy girl with the straw valise, but it had been Poil du Carot, the puppet with the red hair and pointed ears who had saved her, for Coq would not have given a fig for a whole troupe of despairing girls marching single file into the Seine. He had looked upon women and death and dead women unmoved. But it amused him to let Carrot Top and the others deal with the girl as they wished.
    Nevertheless, once the strange little play had begun and the seven had proceeded independently with their work of capturing her, Coq’s sharp showman’s instincts had been quick to recognise the value of this trusting child speaking seriously and with complete belief across the booth to the inhabitants thereof. Whoever or whatever she was, she was possessed of that indefinable something that bridges the gap separating audience and performer and touches the heart of the beholder. He had noted her effect upon the hardened crowd of pitchmen, labourers and fellow rascals who had gathered about his booth. If the girl could be taught to work thus spontaneously with his family, standing out in front of the counter, she might become a definite business asset. If not, he could always kick her out or abandon her.
    But there was one more quality which had attracted him in her, as he had peered through the scrim of the blind curtain and seen her pinched shoulders, hollow cheeks, dark unhappy eyes and snow-white, blue-veined temples beneath the short-cut black hair, or rather which had exasperated him and roused all of the bitterness and hatred of which he had so great a supply. This was her innocence and essential purity. Capitaine Coq was the mortal enemy of innocence. It was the one trait in human beings, man or woman, boy or girl, that he could not bear. He would, if he could, have corrupted the whole world.
    In the back of the car, Mouche had slept the sleep of mental and physical exhaustion. When she awoke, it was morning, and she was alone. All of the panic of the night before returned overwhelmingly and she sprang from the machine looking about her fearfully. But the bright sunlight and the surroundings helped to dissipate some of her fears. The dilapidated vehicle was parked in a tangled area behind booths and concessions of yet another fair. In the background she saw the twin towers of the damaged cathedral of Rheims.
    There was a water pump nearby and she went to it and washed her face, the cold water helping to clear her head. When she ventured through the tangle of guy wires and stays supporting a nearby tent, she heard suddenly a voice with a familiar rasp, “Hola, Mouche!”
    She edged through to the street on which the fair fronted. It was Mr. Reynardo. The booth that she had seen only by torch flare the night before was standing once more. It looked shabby in the morning light. But there was no disputing that Mr. Reynardo was a fine figure of an impudent red fox.
    He whistled at her, opened his jaws and asked, “Wash your face, baby?”
    “Of course,” Mouche replied and then asked pointedly, “Did you?”
    “No, but don’t tell anyone. I think I got away with it.” He whipped below and was replaced by Carrot Top who held a one hundred franc note in his two hands. He said:
    “Oh hello, Mouche. Sleep all right?”
    “Oh yes, thank you. I think so.” The most delicious relief pervaded her. Here they were again, her little friends of the night before. How natural it seemed to be standing there talking