From A Sparkling Diamond
Chapter Four
And so I began to teach Satine the ropes. She mostly helped out back stage, preparing and sewing costumes. She actually started looking healthier as the weeks past. The bruises disappeared and her tresses began to grow back.
I continued to dream of a better life, but for now I had to continue my work. Zidler never did find an investor to put on Audrey's show. It would have been good though. And so Audrey went back to work to re-vamp it. Change the words. Or so I was told.
Weeks soon passed and the work never seemed to end. New costumes, new music, new techniques. A girl can get tired from all the work this "job" required.
Satine began to work the floor one night a week as a can-can dancer as she progressed in her health. Zidler knew that she would have to become parrt of the crew. From the Underworld, there can be no escape. As soon as She started she was a hit. Zidler picked up on it right away. She soon became his pet and slowly I was gone from the center stage. It seemed that my 15 minutes of fame were up. I was slowly moved off the floor and joined the rest of my fellow can-can dancers. They seemed to enjoy the fact that I was no longer the main attraction and constantly mocked me because of it, but it didn't matter. Not any more.
I kept telling myself that this was just a way to make a living until something better comes along. Without it I was just another whore on the street, but here I was a Moulin Rouge dancer. I was wanted just because of that. And letting Satine take the floor was allowing me to stay alive.
( "La Butte" from Moulin Rouge)
"La lune trop bleme pose un diademe sur tes cheveux roux
La lune trop rousse de gloire eclabousse ton jupon plein d'trous
La lune trop pale caresse l'opale de tes yeux blases
Princesse de la rue soit la bienvenue dans mon coeur brise
The stairways up to la butte
Can make the wretched sigh
While windmill wings of the moulin
shelter you and I
Petite mandigotte je sens ta menotte qui cherche ma main
Je sens ta poitrine et ta taille fine
J'oublie mon chagrin
Je sens sur tes levres une odeur de fievre de gosse mal nourri
Et sous ta caresse je sens une ivresse qui m'aneantit
The stairways up to la butte
Can make the wretched sigh
While windmill wings of the moulin
shelter you and I
Et voila qu'elle trotte la lune qui flotte, la princesse aussi
La da da da da da da da da da
Mes reves epanouis
Les escaliers de la butte sont durs aux misereux
Les ailes du moulin protegent les amoureux"
This was us. The girls of the Moulin Rouge. Sheltered by the windmill. Doing what we had to, to scratch out an existence.