Sylvie looked at her mother.  Her face was white.  Her black eyes blazed.  Why had Chantal baited her like this?  Sylive had known since she was little not to speak about her mother’s time at the ballet.  It always made her mother very sad to talk about her own dancing.  She had become a member of the corps but then, for reasons she never really explained, had to leave suddenly.

However, Sylvie knew that her mother had never forgiven Chantal for being kicked out.  She was dismissed not for lack of talent, but for sheer laziness.  And she had already made it into the coryphée, the second rank in the Paris Opera Ballet.  But now she was dancing in a dance hall.  Les Jolies Gamines.  Sylvie knew her mother was absolutely humiliated. 

When Chantal had been told to leave, their mother had raged and said it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life.  “Worse than when Papa died?” Sylvie had asked.  Her mother had given her an odd stare but didn’t answer.

The question seemed to be left hanging in the air forever.  This response – or lack of it – made a deep impression on Sylvie.  The very next day, the day she had turned seven, her mother had taken her to enroll in the school of ballet.  Sylvie knew from that moment on she must never disappoint her mother as Chantal had.

And she wouldn’t.  She was not lazy.  She loved to dance.  She loved everything about it, even dressing her bruised and often bloody toes after long hours of class.

She looked at her mother and Chantal now – both such determined women.  Sylvie hoped that this was not going to turn into one of their big fights.  When these fights happened, Sylvie simply tried to become invisible.  She would shrink back into the shadows of the tiny apartment.  Her mother and sister could fight over the stupidest things.  And there was no reasoning with them when they did.

There was Chantal’s hideously dyed red hair, her smoking in public, her cheap friends, and on and on.  Italian ballerinas were the least of it.  But Slylvie knew if was true that, in the last few years, the Paris Opera Ballet, the directors of the school, and the teachers had developed a passion for Italians.  Some blamed the new director and teacher of the advanced class; she was Italian and her predecessor, the great ballerina.  Marie Taglioni, had also been from Italy.

But who could argue that the adorable Giuseppina Bozzacchi had been the perfect choice to dance the role of Swanilda in Coppélia?  Sylvie knew she had caused a sensation when this brand-new ballet had premiered in May.  And she was only fifteen and as delicate in spirit as she was en pointe.  And Sylvie was certain that she had not been cavorting about with Monsieur Gregory or any of the other abonnés, the gentlemen who often courted the ballerinas.  These affaires des coulisse – the coulisses were the “wings of the stage – as the gossip columnists called the romances, usually ended in disaster.  (There were the rare exceptions, such as Count Ludovic Lepic, who was passionately devoted to Marie Sanlaville.  He had not only provided her with an elaborate apartment in a very fancy neighborhood but also constantly showered her with gifts.)

“But I think Giuseppina is quite wonderful,” Sylvie dared offer.  “Perhaps not as good for the part as Léontine Beaugrand would have been…” Léontine was anther principal dancer who Sylvie admired.

“Your beloved Beaugrand will not advance one bit with the Italians about,” Chantal said.

It was probably true.  For even though Léontine Beaugrand was a soloist and embodied the very best of the restrained style of the French tradition, the fickle audiences were now enamored of only the Italian ballerinas.  Or almost anyone foreign.

“It’s not the Italians you need to worry about!” Yvette said, raising her voice to an alarming level. 

Sylvie opened her eyes wide.  “Who do we have to worry about?”

“The Prussians!”

“Ah, yes! The Prussians!” Chantal said with a studied gravity.  She then squared her shoulders and, holding her chin high, said, “You see, Sylvie, there is more to worry about than your precious three-quarters of an inch.”

“What are you talking about?”  Sylvie looked at both her mother and Chantal.  It was as if she were being left out of some grand secret.  She hated this feeling.  But her mother had turned her back, and now Chantal flounced toward the door, her shrill red curls bouncing as she dragged her somewhat tattered dignity behind her.