How Divided.
And now let me say a few words about the ladies of the ballet. They are divided into premiers, sujets, coryphees, figurants and comparses. I maintain the French terms for the simple reason that there are no Anglo-Saxon equivalents.
Thecorps de ballet, like an army corps, is composed of platoons, divided first of all according to the sexes, and then into quadrilles, first and second. The pay in the second quadrille is 700 to 800 francs a year; in the first, 900 to 1,000 francs; acorypheegets 1,200, 1,300, or 1,400 francs. The next stage issujet, with an engagement of three years and a salary beginning at 1,600 francs and increasing up to 2,000 francs in the last year.
These are the stages through which the members of the ballet of the opera pass. And what a hard time they have! Take, for instance, thecorypheesand the members of the two quadrilles.They arrive at the opera, say a quarter to 9 in the morning, each armed with a leather bag, containing a pair of stockings, some dancing shoes, a corset, a chimisette, a comb, a hand mirror, a button hook, a box of face powder, a piece of bread, two sardines, some potatoes, and a bottle containing more water than wine.
Each one climbs up to the fifth story and enters a room, where her comrades of the quadrille are dressing. In five minutes she has put on her class costume—low necked chimisette, with short sleeves, muslin skirt, rose-colored stockings, shabby satin shoes, a blue ribbon round her neck, and in her corset a bunch of brass medals, a piece of red coral, and two little crosses. These are her fetiches. No danseuse who respects herself can do anything without her fetiches or lucky charms.
Up two more flights of stairs, she arrives in the large square instruction room under the cupola, with the floor slightly inclined to reproduce the slope of the stage. The only furniture is a chair for the teacher, Mme. Merante, a chair for the violin player, Francois Merante, and all around the room bars such as we have already seen in thefoyer de la danse.
“Take your places, young ladies!” cries Mme. Merante. The girls place themselves at the bar, and holding it now with the right hand and now withthe left, twist and dislocate their bodies in every possible fashion. This is only a preparation for the lesson proper. After these exercises, the teacher calls the pupils into the middle of the room, and then begin the figures and pirouettes. If our heroine is ambitious, she will not be content with the lesson alone, but undertake in a corner by herself a number of intricate and peculiar dislocations during the intervals of repose.
The lesson is over. It is 11 o’clock. The girls hurry to their dressing-rooms to change their linen, after which they breakfast in company on sardines, radishes, sour apples, gossip and fried potatoes. At noon the bell rings for rehearsal. The girls have to come down on the stage, and finish their breakfast while the stage manager calls out the names and the ballet master talks to the composer. The rehearsal drags along until 4 o’clock. Then the girls climb up again to their dressing-room, put on their ordinary clothing, and leave the theatre.
It is 5 o’clock by the time they reach their homes, where their mothers, worthyconciergesor washerwomen, are waiting for their daughters to peel the potatoes for dinner. They have only time to wash, to hurry through their dinner, and return to the opera in time for the first act. Acoryphee, for instance, will play a page in thefirst act, appear in the second, and take part in the ballet in the third. During the fourth act she remains in her dressing-room, and does a little crochet, but hardly has she done a few points before the call man’s voice is heard in the lobbies: “Ladies, the fourth act is finished.” She changes her costume, scampers down the stairs, and rushes upon the stage. The curtain falls. Thecorypheeregains her dressing-room, puts on her ordinary clothes, and leaves the theatre. It is nearly 1 o’clock when she reaches her home, and, after eating a bit of bread and cheese while she undresses, she creeps into her narrow bed. Her day’s work is over.