Whenever the csardas comes to an end there is a violent clapping of hands to make the music resume. Hungarians are absolutely insatiable in this respect, and, however long the dance has lasted, there will always be eager cries for more and more and more.
The cotillon, which was kept up till seven in the morning, was much prettier than any I remember to have seen danced before, for Hungarians are as superior to Germans or Englishwomen in point of grace as they are to Poles in the matter of animation—and they executed all the usual figures demanding the introduction of a cushion, a mirror, a fan, India-rubber balls, etc., in a manner equally removed from boisterous romping as from languid affectation.
The following evening (Monday) the society reassembled at the pleasant and hospitable house of Mme. de Z——, whose dark-eyed daughters take a foremost rank among Transylvanian beauties. In order to have some strength remaining for what was still to come, dancing was on this occasion reduced to the modest allowance of six hours, the gypsies being compulsorily sent away soon after three o’clock, in order to force the young people to take some rest.
On Tuesday we all met again at the Casino for the bachelor’s ball, given by the gentlemen of the place, and where, with the exception of supper and occasional snatches of refreshment, dancing was kept up uninterruptedly till near eight o’clock next morning. At the conclusion of the cotillon each lady received from her partner a pretty white and silver fan, on which her initials were engraved—a souvenir which I have much pleasure in preserving, in remembrance of the happy days I passed at Klausenburg.
An old traditional dance, which they here call Écossaise (but which in reality is simply a pot-pourri of several English country-dances), is danced at Klausenburg after midnight on Shrove-Tuesday, or rather Ash-Wednesday morning.[76] This dance having been somewhat neglected of late years, the young people blundered sorely over some of the figures, and the dance would have lapsed into hopeless chaos had not the former generation gallantly thrown themselves into the breach. Respectable fathers of grown-up daughters, and white-haired grandmothers, now started to their feet, instinctively roused to action by vivid recollections of their own youth; and such is the power of memory that soon they were footing it with the nimblest dancers, going through each figure with unerring precision, and executing the complicated steps with an accuracy and grace which did honor to the dancing-masters of half a century ago.
One of these figures was the old one of cat and mouse, in which the girl, protected by a ring of dancers, tries to escape the pursuit of her partner, who seeks to break through the line of defenders—the moment when the cat seizes its prey being always marked by the band-master causing his violin to give a piteous squeak, imitating to perfection the agonized death-shriek of a captured mouse.
It is de rigueur that the last dance on Ash-Wednesday morning should be executed by daylight. This was about seven o’clock, when, the lights being extinguished and the shutters flung open, the gypsies threw all their remaining energies into a last furious, breathless galop—a weirder, wilder scene than I ever witnessed in a ball-room, to look at this frenziedly whirling mass of figures, but dimly to be descried in the scarcely breaking dawn—gray and misty-looking as ghosts risen from the grave to celebrate their nightly revels, and who, warned by the cock’s crow of approaching daybreak, are treading their last mazes with a fast and furious glee; while the wild strains of the Tzigane band, rendered yet more fantastic by the addition of a monstrous drum (expressly introduced for the purpose of adding to the turmoil), might well have been borrowed from an infernal orchestra.
When the galop came to an end at last, from sheer want of breath on the part of both players and dancers, daylight was streaming into the room, disclosing a crowd of torn dresses, crushed flowers, and flushed and haggard faces, worn with the dissipation of the previous hours—a characteristic sight, but not a beautiful one by any means. Each one now rushed to the tea-room to receive the cups of fresh steaming kraut suppe, served here at the conclusion of every ball. It is made of a species of pickled cabbage, and has a sharp acid flavor, most grateful to a jaded palate, and supposed to be supreme in restoring equilibrium to overtaxed digestions.
While the ladies were resting till their carriages were announced, the gentlemen began to light their cigars, and the Tziganes, having recovered strength, resumed their bows; but what they now played was no longer dance music, but wild, fitful strains and melancholy national airs, addressed now to one, now to another of the listeners grouped about.
In other Continental towns dancing is brought to an end on Ash-Wednesday morning, and most people would suppose that having danced for three nights running, even the youngest of the young would be glad to take some rest at last. Not so at Klausenburg: nobody is ever tired here or has need of rest, as far as I can make out; and it is a special feature of the place that precisely Ash-Wednesday should be the day of all others when gayety runs the wildest. The older generation, indeed, lament that dancing is no longer what it used to be; for in their time the Shrove-Tuesday party used never to break up till the Thursday morning, dancing being kept up the whole Wednesday and the following night, people merely retiring in batches for an hour or so at a time to repair the damages to their toilets.