She is getting fat. Name of God, I shudder. I say,
'Lucia, we are ruined. You get fat. I can only throw knives at you like
you were, like we have studied together. You get fat. I must change my
throw. I cannot!"
* * * * *
The great Salvini raised his shoulders in a despairing shrug.
"Two years ago that was," he whispered. "She weigh one hundred fifty
pounds when we marry. So pretty, so light she is. But now she weigh
already two hundred pounds, and she is going up. She will not listen to
me.
"It is the eat, the eat, the terrible eat which do this. And every night
when we perform I shiver, I grow cold. I stand looking at her as she take
her place on the board. And I see she have grow bigger. Perhaps it is
nothing to you, a woman grown bigger. But to Salvini it is ruin.
"I throw the knife. Zip it goes and I close my eyes each time. I no longer
dare give her the beautiful frame as before. But I must throw away.
Because for eight years I have thrown at a target of 150 pounds. And my
art cannot change.
"Some day she will be sorry. Yes, some day she will understand what she is
doing to me. She will eat, eat until she grow so fat that it is all my
target that I mastered on the honeymoon.
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