Bettine LaVaughn

Bettine LaVaughn is the noblewoman injured when an elephant crashes through the roof of the Bliffendorf Opera House during a magician’s performance. Her crushed legs leave her dependent on a wheelchair, and the accident first makes her the magician’s accuser; later, she becomes the person who releases him from the threat of prosecution.

The Opera-House Accident and Its Aftermath

The magician had intended to conjure lilies for Bettine LaVaughn, but an elephant instead crashed through the opera-house ceiling in a shower of plaster dust and roofing tiles, landing in her lap. Her legs were crushed. She was thereafter confined to a wheelchair, and the magician was immediately imprisoned at her behest.

The accident also exposes the difficulty of assigning blame. Baltese’s chief of police, a strict believer in the letter of the law, could find no instructions in his handbook for a beast that had appeared from nowhere, destroyed an opera-house roof, and crippled a noblewoman. One policeman proposed trying and punishing the elephant as a criminal. Leo Matienne challenged that conclusion: the elephant had not chosen to fall through the roof, just as a rock would not be morally responsible for a window broken by someone who threw it. His argument distinguishes the harm Bettine suffered from the question of whether the animal intended it.

Injury, Confinement, and the Prison Visits

Bettine LaVaughn’s injury shapes her daily circumstances: she is shown in a wheelchair, with a blanket over her legs, and the sound of the chair’s wheels precedes her visits to the imprisoned magician. She comes in the late afternoon. Though the narrator describes her as sunk in gloom, her eyes appear wide and pleading when she reaches him; despite these visits, he is astonished by her presence each time.

Her account of the accident remains a recurring part of her conversation. She exclaims, even when the subject has nothing to do with elephants or roofs, that an elephant came through the roof and crippled her. The recurrence keeps the extraordinary cause of her disability in view: the injury is not an abstract misfortune but the consequence of a specific, spectacular accident.

The Countess Quintet later takes possession of the elephant, having a wall knocked down and an enormous decorated door installed because her home has no entrance large enough for the animal. She also writes to Bettine LaVaughn, expressing sorrow over the tragedy and offering enthusiastic support for the further prosecution and punishment of the magician. That offer aligns the countess’s influence with Bettine’s original demand for punishment, while the elephant remains under private control.

Asked to Help Reverse the Magic

When the magician is asked to send the elephant away, he explains that he cannot make her disappear unless she is present and that he will also need Bettine LaVaughn. He asks Peter Augustus Duchene and Leo Matienne to bring both the elephant and the noblewoman to him. The request places Bettine, injured by the magician’s act, within the effort to undo its consequences; the available account does not give her response to the request before the later gathering.

Release and Change of Position

After the elephant has been returned home and the group is together, Adele asks whether the magician will be sent back to prison. Leo Matienne says that he must do so. Bettine LaVaughn intervenes: she calls a return to prison pointless, says that what has happened has happened, and releases the magician. She promises to press no charges and to sign any statements needed to that effect, then urges that he be let go.

Her decision reverses the position she took immediately after the accident, when she had the magician imprisoned. The injury itself is not undone, but Bettine chooses not to extend its consequences through continued prosecution. In the story’s resolution, her final act is an exercise of legal agency: the person harmed by the magician’s magic is also the person who can end his imprisonment.