Page:René Le Coeur Le bar aux femmes nues, 1925.djvu/13



At the small bar, you can first meet Mr. Hector, the director-owner, then the customers, the actresses from the current play, and the dance teacher. Lately, you can also meet the author. The author of the new play.

Because the other one is soon leaving the billboards. The other one doesn't please the clientele. The action takes place at the seaside baths. You see these ladies in swimsuits on the beach. The regular gentlemen have complained. They rightly pointed out that they could contemplate every year, for free, during their vacation, women in tight swimsuits. So? They wanted naked women; with a loincloth, of course, due to the strictness of the laws.

That's why we're rehearsing a new Egyptian play, I believe. This time, these ladies are naked. I attended the rehearsal of the seamstresses; the seamstresses who mended the loincloths, so precisely measured that they reminded me, in a more pleasant way, of my geometry class back when I was with the good fathers and the theorems on the equality of two right triangles. Ah! If I had been given, as proof of this equality, the example of the pretty girls from the small bar and their loincloths, I would have understood immediately. And maybe today I would be a naval officer or an engineer. It would be me presiding over the exploitation of the Ruhr wages, instead of writing tales.

At the rehearsal of the seamstresses, they had the delicate attention of placing me in the front row. I am sitting next to the author's wife. His legitimate wife. She is pretty. She appears to be very well-endowed. And he is very jealous. These ladies themselves have informed me.

They are making their debut on the stage of the small theater, these ladies. The entire previous troupe has left. There have been terrible stories because of the charming usherette.