Passing through the door, Saint-Prosper was ushered to his seat in a renovated auditorium; new curtain, re-decorated stalls, mirrors and gilt in profusion; the old restfulness gone, replaced by glitter and show. Amid changed conditions, the derangement of fixed external form and outline, the sight of a broad face in the orchestra and the aspect of a colossal form riveted his attention. This person was neither stouter nor thinner than before; he perspired neither more nor less; he was neither older nor younger––seemingly; he played on his instrument neither better nor worse. Youth might fade, honors take wing, the face of nature change, but Hans, Gargantuan Hans, appeared but a figure in an eternal present! Gazing at that substantial landmark, the soldier was carried back in thought over the long period of separation to a forest idyl; a face in the firelight; the song of the katydid; the drumming of the woodpecker. Dreams; vain dreams! They had assailed him before, but seldom so sharply as now in a place consecrated to the past.
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“Look out for the dandies, Girls, beware; Look out for their blandishments, Dears, take care! For they’re always ready––remember this!–– To pilfer from maids an unwilling kiss. Oh, me! Oh, my! There! There!” (Imaginary slaps.) |
sang and gesticulated a lady in abbreviated skirts and low-cut dress, winking and blinking in ironical shyness, and concluding with a flaunting of her gown, a toe pointed ceilingward, and a lively “breakdown.” Then she vanished with a hop, skip and a bow, reappeared with a ravishing smile and threw a generous assortment of kisses among the audience, 468 and disappeared with another hop, skip and a bow, as Impecunious Jordan burst upon the spectators from the opposite side of the stage.
Even the sight of Hans, a finger-post pointing to ways long since traversed, could not reconcile the soldier to his surroundings; the humor of the burnt-cork artist seemed inappropriate to the place; his grotesque dancing inadmissible in that atmosphere once consecrated to the comedy of manners and the stately march of the classic drama. Where Hamlet had moralized, a loutish clown now beguiled the time with some tom-foolery, his wit so broad, his quips were cannon-balls, and his audience, for the most part soldiers from Mexico, open-mouthed swallowed the entire bombardment. But Saint-Prosper, finding the performance dull, finally rose and went out, not waiting for the thrilling Tableaux of the Entrance into the City of Mexico of a hundred American troops (impersonated by young ladies in tropical attire) and the submission of Santa Anna’s forces (more young ladies) by sinking gracefully to their bended knees.
Fun and frolic were now in full swing on the thoroughfares; Democritus, the rollicker, had commanded his subjects to drive dull care away and they obeyed the jovial lord of laughter. Animal spirits ran high; mischief beguiled the time; mummery romped and rioted. Marshaled by disorder, armed with drollery and divers-hued banners, they marched to the Castle of Chaos, where the wise are fools, the old are young and topsy-turvy is the order of the day.
As Saint-Prosper stood watching the versicolored concourse swarm by, a sudden rush of bystanders to view Faith on a golden pedestal, looking more like Coquetry, propelled a dainty figure against the soldier. Involuntarily he put out his arm which girded a slender waist; Faith drove simpering by; the crowd melted like a receding wave, and the lady extricated herself, breathless as one of the maids in Lorenzo de Medici’s Songs of the Carnival.
“How awkward!” she murmured. “How––”
The sentence remained unfinished and an exclamation, “Mr. Saint-Prosper!” punctuated a gleam of recognition.