Nights at the Circus

Fevvers’s act is sabotaged by a family of jealous fellow circus performers; the trapeze breaks during Fevvers’s act, but she swings herself back up to the platform. However, knowing she’s been sabotaged, she refuses to come down. Fevvers finally takes the rope ladder down from the trapeze; Walser thinks that she has undermined the authenticity of her act by doing this and feels that she has diminished herself from a marvel to a mere freak. When Fevvers joins Walser in the seats, he sees that she was really frightened.

Next, Mignon and the Princess make their debut with their tigers; the Colonel is initially apprehensive, but their act brings the house down, and he is thrilled at all the potential profit he will bring in. Walser is forced into the dancing tigers act as a volunteer; as he dances with his tiger partner, he looks into the tigress’s eyes and has the same sensation he experienced in his moment with the Professor.

After the show, Samson the Strong Man attacks Walser. Fevvers rescues Walser and takes both men back to the tiger house. Samson proceeds to sob in Fevvers’s arms; he thought that Mignon had left him for Walser and was heartbroken over the prospect of having lost Mignon to a clown. Walser is jealous that Samson gets Fevvers’s comfort and not him. Meanwhile, Mignon and the Princess have fallen in love. The Professor brings in an unconscious, drunk Monsieur Lamarck. He takes Lamarck’s wallet and then pays the Colonel a visit in his room. The Professor is there to renegotiate the Educated Apes’ contract: he gives the Colonel a written note stating that Lamarck is an incompetent drunk and requests that management of the act be transferred to him, the Professor, and that he be paid the apes’ wages directly. The Colonel is hesitant to do this, especially as the salary the Professor names is substantially higher because it includes compensation for the rest of the apes. The Colonel consults Sybil, who is adamant that the Colonel make this contract with the Professor. The Colonel is a little suspicious, thinking that perhaps there exists some kind of “solidarity amongst the dumb beasts” (170), but he acquiesces. Finally satisfied, the Professor leaves; he runs into Lizzie, who helps him get a copy of Cook’s International Rail Timetable.

Fevvers has dinner with the Colonel, but he cannot keep up with her alcohol consumption and soon passes out. Back at the hotel suite, Lizzie is writing on something when Fevvers returns, although it is not clear what. Lizzie says only that it’ll “be ready for his next consignment” (171). Fevvers responds that it’s a shame to play a trick on “such a nice young man” (171), and Lizzie says that he’s not good enough for Fevvers yet, that he’s “not hatched out yet” (171) even though he’s been pelted by eggs, indicating that the man they’re talking about is Walser. A bell boy delivers a vase of violets, Fevvers’s lucky flower, There is a note along with them, but Lizzie reads it with disapproval and tosses it into the fire before Fevvers can read it. A diamond bracelet arrived along with the violets, which impresses Fevvers greatly.

Buffo goes on a binge-drinking spree and has completely ruined himself for the performance the next day. The other clowns are wary of him in this state, and one of them warns Walser to get the carving knife used in the act away from Buffo if he can, as Buffo is prone to become “homicidal.” During the act, Buffo tries to murder Walser with the knife, and Walser only just manages to evade him. The Princess douses Buffo with the hose pipe, and Buffo is restrained in a straitjacket and taken directly to a Russian asylum. Disaster also strikes in the Princess and Mignon’s act: Princess is forced to shoot one of the tigers when it attempts to attack Mignon. The Colonel is devastated to have lost two of his most valuable acts, and Walser is distraught by the undoing of Buffo.

Meanwhile, Lizzie gives Walser some papers to send to the dispatch and makes him hurry to get them there that day. Lizzie is irritated with Fevvers because Fevvers is going to a rendezvous with the Grand Duke and Lizzie can’t come; Fevvers implies that she and Lizzie are going to take advantage of the Duke, and then escape that night. The Colonel’s circus continues to come undone as the Professor and his colleagues resign, with tickets for the train to Helsinki. The Colonel despairs, as his plan to conquer the globe seems to be falling apart all in front of him.

Fevvers goes to the Duke’s for dinner but is immediately unnerved by the scene he’s set before her. A giant ice sculpture of Fevvers is on display, forewarning the Duke’s obsession with her. Fevvers begins to feel out of her depth, but she is determined to stay because she knows she can get riches off the Duke if she’s patient. The Duke shows Fevvers a series of ornately jeweled eggs, each of which houses a toy or nature scene. He tells her that she can have any one she desires if she lets him see her wings. Fevvers tries to negotiate her way out of it, but the Duke is insistent. When Fevvers shows him her wings and pleasures him, he holds her fast in his arms, and Fevvers realizes he means to trap her. She reaches for her sword to defend herself, but the Duke breaks it in half. Left helpless, Fevvers seizes a model train from one of the eggs and throws it on the ground. The next moment, she is somehow on the Trans-Siberian Railway with Lizzie, Walser, and the rest of the circus cast. Fevvers sobs in Lizzie’s arms after her ordeal with the Duke, and Walser is stunned to see her this way.