“They mortify themselves only the better for that. Each one has hung around the loins a sort of haircloth, that horrible load of petticoats which hurts them and finally makes them ill. This is after the example of the saints, the better to work out salvation.”
“But all the men are smiling.”
“That is the finest thing about it; cramped as they are, shut up in their winding-sheet of black cloth. They impose restraint on themselves, and give proof of virtue. Go forward six steps, you will see.”
The young man advanced; not yet used to the movements of a drawing-room, he stepped on the feet of a dancer and smashed the hat of a melancholy gentleman. He returned, covered with confusion, to hide himself beside us.
“What did your two poor devils say to you?”
“I don’t at all understand. The first, after an involuntary wry face, looked at me amiably. The other put his hat under his other arm and bowed.”
“Humility, resignation, a wish to suffer in order to enhance their merits. Under Henry III. they thanked him who had strapped them the best. I will make a musician talk; listen. Monsieur Steuben, what quadrille are you playing there?”
“L’Enfer, a fantastic quadrille. It is the legend of a young girl carried off alive in the clutches of the devil.”
“It is, indeed?”
“Very expressive. The finale expresses her cries of grief and the howling of the demons. The young girl makes the air, the demons the bass.