Cyprian

Cyprian is Delphine’s longtime companion and a traveling performer whose return to Argus tests the boundaries of her marriage to Fidelis. He is presented both in intimate scenes of friendship and unresolved feeling and onstage as an acrobat and animal performer, moving between personal uncertainty and carefully staged spectacle. His partnership with Vilhus Gast gives his performance a distinctive blend of balance, comedy, and danger.

Identity and Background

Cyprian is close to Delphine, who tells Fidelis that Cyprian is like a brother to her and that they are not married or sexually involved. Her explanation is direct, but Fidelis misreads Cyprian’s lack of desire as a possible consequence of a war wound. The exchange reveals a gap between Delphine’s account of their relationship and Fidelis’s assumptions about it; his difficulty responding is compounded by limited English and the emotional strain of the conversation.

When Cyprian returns to Argus, Delphine recognizes him at once. He has shaved his head and wears a hat; the altered appearance makes him seem more striking to her, and her involuntary smile betrays how glad she is to see him before she remembers Clarisse and wonders what happened to her. Delphine’s reaction is mixed: affection and curiosity coexist with discomfort about how Fidelis might interpret their meeting. She knows she has done nothing wrong, yet finds herself newly aware of jealousy as a force in her marriage.

Return to Argus and Relationship with Delphine

Cyprian says that he is passing through, but adds that he had to see whether Delphine loves Fidelis. She answers that she does. His challenge to that answer makes explicit the unresolved tension between them: Cyprian questions the truth of her commitment, while Delphine insists on it. The scene does not resolve their feelings so much as place them in direct contrast with the life she has chosen with Fidelis.

Cyprian’s visit also takes place against Delphine’s effort to resume ordinary routines after marrying Fidelis. She continues working at the butcher shop and at the courthouse, keeps reading, and cares for Roy, but describes her past as unfinished and difficult to put away. Cyprian’s reappearance draws that unfinished history into the present. Her uneasiness around him is therefore not simply attraction or guilt; it reflects the strain of carrying old attachments into a new marriage and the vigilance she feels under Fidelis’s imagined scrutiny.

The Traveling Act

Cyprian explains that he is in Argus for a performance engagement, not to seek a local job. He travels with Vilhus Gast as part of a lyceum series and offers Roy tickets. He says the two formed their act through a shared sense of being outsiders: he recounts that Gast had spoken of Jews and Native Americans as peoples made to wander and remain at the edge of things, and that they decided to roam together. Their touring partnership grows from this conversation into a regular performance.

Delphine and Markus attend the show at the school gymnasium and sit in the first row. Delphine expects people to stare at Cyprian’s shaved head and at her own presence, so she chooses a seat that lets her turn her back on the audience and concentrate on the act. Her choice makes the performance both public entertainment and a test of how she will meet the town’s curiosity: she intends to watch rather than be watched.

Performance and Stagecraft

Cyprian and Gast begin barefoot on large red rubber balls, pedaling around one another and exchanging places in midair to applause. Their act depends on visible instability: the performers balance on moving surfaces, then catch and support one another in poses that nearly fail before they recover. Cyprian’s athletic control is central, but the performance is collaborative, with Gast’s stillness and balance making Cyprian’s leaps possible.

The act then turns its apparent toupee into a reveal. Gast stands motionless while Cyprian bounces on a ball and springs into a hand-locked balance with him. As they sway and right themselves, the wig slowly proves to be a large spider. The creature moves onto Cyprian’s bare head, and a second, smaller spider is coaxed up his throat. The audience’s amazement and discomfort become part of the spectacle: the performers sustain their balance while the spiders transform a comic disguise into a startling feature of the act.

Cyprian also performs a comic imitation of Adolf Hitler. In a swallowtail coat and polished boots, he adopts the stern appearance of the dictator, while an offstage tuba punctuates the act with bodily comedy. The audience discovers that its own imitation of the Nazi salute can trigger the comic effect, so spectators become active participants in the parody. Cyprian’s performance turns the appearance of authority into a joke, and the act ends amid laughter and applause.

The Snake Act and Narrative Role

For the next act, Cyprian and Gast appear in jeweled turbans and flowing, transparent fabric beside an enormous leather valise. They draw out a python and perform what they call the Dance of Death, winding and unwinding with it as the animal moves among them. The audience believes the snake may devour the men, and its attention shifts between the performers’ control and the animal’s unpredictable presence. Cyprian and Gast then carry the python down the aisle, allowing spectators to touch its skin, before returning it to the case.

The performance’s apparent danger turns into a staged trick when the men produce saws and ask whether there is a butcher in the house. Pete Kozka tests the tools; the performers saw the python inside the case, then use smoke, chanting, gestures, and glue to restore it for the remainder of the show. They follow with lizards, an iguana, the spider presented as Gast’s former toupee, and further balancing feats. The sequence makes Cyprian’s act a changing series of tests of spectators’ belief: athletic precision, animal peril, comedy, and theatrical repair all share the same stage.

Cyprian’s significance lies in this double presence. In private, his return unsettles Delphine’s attempt to settle into marriage and exposes the limits of what she can explain to Fidelis. In public, he turns balance into a working art, repeatedly approaching apparent collapse and recovering through his own skill and Gast’s cooperation. The performance does not settle his relationship with Delphine, but it gives his return a vivid public form: he remains a companion from her past and, at the same time, a performer whose life continues on the road.