"She is her father's pupil," Madame Chelli, her mother informed me, as she assisted Erminia in putting on a large pelisse. "She began to appear in public when she was quite a little girl. . . ."
As she spoke an equestrian came in to tell them that the net was being prepared for Mademoiselle Chelli's performance.
Erminia threw off her mantle, and with the caressing tones [p235] of a young girl, a little seriously and gravely, she went up to her mother and put her arms round her neck:
"No one knows," the mother answered. "It has been her custom since childhood."
Truly, in spite of the net extended beneath her, she might well be excused, poor little girl, for having one moment's uneasiness whenever she was fetched for her dizzy work on the trapeze.
For one whole month I strained my neck watching her extraordinary performance in the friezes. Without the assistance of her hands, which she used as a counterpoise, she bent low enough to pick up with her teeth a handkerchief laid upon the trapeze. She mounted a ladder which was only poised upon the round oscillating piece of wood. Lastly, she balanced an immense ball still upon this frail support, and then, without leaning upon anything, she mounted upon it. And thus, lost in space, the globe beneath her feet, she seemed, the little acrobat, so beautiful, so unconscious of danger, like a goddess travelling through the air with the earth for a movable pedestal.
The enthusiasm with which I had praised the beauty and talents of Erminia Chelli in several newspapers procured for me at that time the letter which I reproduce here with great pleasure. It is from a literary man, and throws a genuine light upon the customs of some of those acrobats who as a class are so misunderstood by the public. [p236]
"The article in which you allude to Mademoiselle Chelli recalls to me a souvenir which I have much pleasure in relating to you.
"Three or four years ago the Chelli family came to Vichy and took part in the performances at the Eden Theatre. The father went through some acts of strength and equilibrium; the daughter was commencing on the flying trapeze the work for which she is now distinguished. The mother watched them both, admired them, and trembled.