Suddenly those that stood nearest the Breton saw him shudder, then sway, as if to fall. He staggered back among the crowd as one choking for a breath of fresh air; he forced his way through them, then moved listlessly along through the half-vacant street.
Again the dusk crowd caught up with him and hurried him along the Street of the Marble Portal, thence into the broad Avenue of Peace, which leads to the Gate of Eternal Rest, the last of the city gates to be closed. These men, who but a moment before had been aburst with jest, hastened silently on.
Down the street was heard the sound of wedding music—a bride happy and smiling was being carried with her trosseau to the home of the groom. The crowd was once more full of laughter and jest, for no people so love to mock the misfortunes or cajole the vanity of others as the people of this old land. None are more skilful in its use and abuse. They are at it during all hours and in all places where men or women congregate; in markets, streets, and temples, they hurl it from window to window; and on the boats in the river old women are perched on the high poops with no other purpose than to revile and abuse. Their fund is inexhaustible; they can rail most viciously at one another, foam with vituperations, then part as friendly as they met.
So once more the Breton, in the half stupor of his terrible sorrow, was forced to listen to lascivious and brutal jests hurled so relentlessly upon one perhaps as beautiful and—and——
The crowd forced the Breton against the wall. Flaring torches and swaying lanterns could now be seen winding toward them. The head of the procession came by—an old man bearing a large gold-brocaded umbrella, which he held over the bride as she entered and left the sedan. Behind him came men bearing great lanterns inscribed with propitiatory sentences: “May the phœnix sing harmoniously”—another way of wishing that the bride will give birth to a son. As the crowd deciphered these various illumined wishes, they commented upon them in sarcasm which cannot be uttered. The musicians who followed did their utmost to drown the abuse heaped upon them, as did the bearers of halberds, dragon heads, titular flags, and honorary tablets, denoting the honours and rank of the bride’s father, but there was no compassion in the crowd as they assailed with their vituperation these unfortunate symbols of human vanity.
Parties of young lads, fantastically dressed, tripped gaily by playing on drums and flutes, followed by bearers arrayed in red robes and burdened under many vermilion-lacquered boxes containing the bride’s trosseau. The contents of these boxes came in for a new outburst of lecherous jest. Men turned to one another and those nearest the Breton surrounded him and delivered grave conjectures as to what they contained—doubts that were brutal.
The bride approached, securely locked in her red and gold sedan, surrounded by quivering, silken lanterns. The acme of the crowd’s pleasure was now reached and their licentiousness ended in a final outburst. They jested upon everything appertaining to a bride or a woman, from the size of her feet to the possibilities of her extravagances. They took a maternal interest in her, and gravely advised her as to what to do upon this night. Nothing had been left unsaid when the wedding procession vanished in the darkness of the narrow streets.
Silent, even sombre, became the crowd as it hastened with the Breton toward the Gate of Eternal Rest under whose shadowy portals soldiers were drawn up preparatory to closing the gates for the night. The crowd hurried through and, once beyond the walls, vanished, dispersing almost instantly in the black labyrinth of the suburbs.
The Breton went on alone, his manner unchanged by the vanishing of those that had but a moment before elbowed and jostled him along through the streets. In and out, winding, turning, twisting through this black network, he threaded his way. Through narrow passages, up and down hollow worn stairs, under gloom-weighted portals, along the edges of canals and over bridges that spanned them, he went carelessly along, neither faltering nor stumbling.
When he came to the north entrance of the Mission Compound he stopped for the first time. He stood for a moment, unloosened the neck of his robe, then went slowly along the wall until he came to the northwest corner; turning, he followed the western side until he passed out into the open space lying between the Mission and the river. Again he hesitated for a moment, then crossed to the river’s overhanging bank where its black waters swirled straight down below his feet.