DANCING AT THE MOULIN ROUGE
| in striking contrast with the reckless abandon of such resorts as the Moulin Rouge, maintained mainly for the prudent depravity of tourists. |
In connection with the soirée familiale, it is highly diverting to note the same advertising dodges on the part of the managers; the same meaningless compliments to performers on the part of those who introduce them; the same ill-concealed impatience on the part of the audience during the serious part of the exercises for the dancing to begin; the same fluttering preoccupation with ribbons, robes, coiffures, and aigrettes, and the same jealousies of superior beauty, superior style, and more numerous or assiduous adorers on the part of the young women; and the same fussy solicitude on the part of doting mammas to have their daughters dance with the young men that are “likely” as in assemblies that do not occupy themselves with lofty ideas and ideals; also the same tiptoeing excitement over the drawing of the tombola as in the soirées of the working people, who do not profess a contempt for gain.
But he would be a precipitate reasoner, not to say a sorry churl, who should pounce on these little charming inconsequences as refutations of the anarchist theory, or should even call attention to them as other than reassuring evidence that the anarchist is a very human and likable being, not unaffected with amiable vices, and that he is not the abject slave of that angular consistency which, if it be a virtue at all, is the most unlovely of all the virtues. Your sound anarchist will probably tell you that he is sincerely ashamed of these failings, that they are deplorable relics of the old spirit of over-reaching which cannot, in the nature of the case, be entirely expelled so long as the old social régime continues. But this apology is so familiar, so threadbare even, it has been proffered so many, many times by so many very different sorts of people, that you prefer to ignore it, and attribute the anarchist’s dainty peccadilloes to the good old human nature which has always made men so much more companionable—let us guard ourselves against saying so much better—than their creeds.
In all the anarchist assemblies—the group meetings, the congresses, the mass meetings, and the various social and semi-social evenings—the trimardeur is a noteworthy figure. The trimardeur[7] (literally, pilgrim of the great road) is a camarade who devotes himself to winning converts while making his tour of France. He has a certain kinship with the ancient bard, the mediæval troubadour and itinerant friar, and the German apprentice on his Wanderjahre.
