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This was my first night at a bal musette and my last in that year, for shortly afterwards I left for Italy and in Italy one does not dance. But the next season found me anxious to renew the adventure, to again enjoy the pleasures of the bal musette. I have said I was perhaps wrong in recalling the street as the Rue Jessaint, or perhaps the old maison had disappeared. At any rate, when I searched I could not find the bal, not even the bar. So again I appealed for help, this time to a chauffeur, who drove me to the opposite side of the city, to the quartier of the Halles…. And I was beginning to think that the man had misunderstood me, or was stupid. “He will take me to a cabaret, l’Ange Gabriel or”–and I rapidly revolved in my mind the possibilities of this quarter where the apaches come to the surface to feel the purse of the tourist, who buys drinks as he listens to stories of murders, some of which have been committed, for it is true that some of the real apaches go there (I know because my friend Fernand did and it was in l’Ange Gabriel that he knocked all the teeth down the throat of Angelique, sa gigolette. You may find the life of these creatures vividly and amusingly described in that amazing book of Charles-Henry Hirsch, “Le Tigre et Coquelicot” It is the only book I have read about the apaches of modern Paris that is worth its pages). But the idea of l’Ange Gabriel was not amusing to me this evening and I leaned forward to ask my chauffeur if he had it in mind to substitute another attraction for my desired bal musette. His reply was reassuring; it took the form of a gesture, the waving of a hand towards a small lighted globe depending over the door of a little marchand de vin. On this globe was painted in black letters the single word, bal. We were in the narrow Rue des Gravilliers–I was there for the first time–and the bal was the Bal des Gravilliers.

The bar is so small, when one enters, that there is no intimation of the really splendid aspect of the dancing room. For here there are two rooms separated by the dancing floor, two halls filled with tables, with long wooden benches between them. Benches also line the walls, which are white with a grey-blue frieze; the lighting is brilliant. The musicians play in a little balcony, and here there are two of them, an accordionist and a guitarist. The performer on the accordion is a virtuoso; he takes delight in winding florid ornament, after the manner of some brilliant singer impersonating Rosina in Il Barbiere, around the melodies he performs. As in the Rue Jessaint a sou is demanded in the middle of each dance. But there comparison must cease, for the life here is gayer, more of a character. The types are of the Halles…. There are strange exits….

A short woman enters; ” elle s’avance en se balancant sur ses hanches comme une pouliche du haras de Cordoue “; she suggests an operatic Carmen in her swagger. She is slender, with short, dark hair, cropped a la Boutet de Monvel, and she flourishes a cigarette, the smoke from which wreathes upward and obscures–nay makes more subtle–the strange poignancy of her deep blue eyes. Her nose is of a snubness. It is the mome Estelle, and as she passes down the narrow aisle, between the tables, there is a stir of excitement…. The men raise their eyes…. Edouard, le petit, flicks a louis carelessly between his thumb and fore-finger, with the long dirty nails, and then passes it back into his pocket. Do not mistake the gesture; it is not made to entice the mome, nor is it a sign of affluence; it is Edouard’s means of demanding another louis before the night is up, if it be only a ” louis de dix francs.” Estelle looks at him boldly; there is no fear in her eyes; you can see that she would face death with Carmen’s calm if the Fates cut the thread to that effect…. The music begins and Estelle dances with Carmella, l’Arabe. Edouard glowers and pulls his little grey cap down tower…. It is a waltz…. Suddenly he is on the floor and Estelle is pressed close to his body…. Carmella sits down. She smiles, and presently she is dancing with Jean-Baptiste…. Estelle and Edouard are now whirling, whirling, and all the while his dark eyes look down piercingly into her blue eyes. The music stops. Estelle fumbles in her stocking for two sous. Edouard lights a Maryland.