Laissas la passa—
Che vai dansa...."
And the Tarasque wags his tail (a straight beam, be it remembered) and overturns some of the crowd. And the people are delighted with the prowess of their beast. If one is injured they cry:
"A qua ben fe, la tarascoa rou un bré" ("Well done, the tarasque has broken his arm").
And the clumsy procession moves away and the crowds sing and shout: "Voulen mai nostro tarasco" ("We wish again for our tarasque"). And so they let off any amount of superfluous energy.
THE CHÂTEAU OF KING RENÉ, TARASCON.
By Joseph Pennell.
It is a subject for reflection among sociologists whether the dying out of pageants and dancing, festivals of harvest and seed-time—all the natural expressions of human joy—does not constitute a serious danger to the modern state. For either that joy will find some less healthy kind of expression or it will be killed altogether; and in that case the race, as a race, must be killed also, as a flower deprived of the sunshine and the airs of heaven. It is not joy, but the lack of it that drives a nation mad!