A dusky swarm of boys and half-grown youths came winding round the nearest street-corner, followed immediately by the head of a mock procession. In the lead marched a fellow dressed in a brown cloak, the hood of which was drawn over his head. His waist was encircled with a girdle from which dangled a string of pebbles representing a rosary. To complete the caricature of a Capuchin, his feet were bare, excepting a pair of soles which were strapped to them with thongs of leather. In his hands he bore a tall cross rudely contrived with a couple of sticks. The image of the cross was represented by a broken mineral-water bottle. Behind the cross-bearer followed the procession in a double line, consisting of boys, young men, factory-hands, drunken mechanics, and such other begrimed and besotted beings as progress alone can count in its ranks. The members of the procession were chanting a litany; at the same time they folded their hands, made grimaces, turned their eyes upwards, or played unseemly pranks with genuine rosary beads.
Next in the procession came a low car drawn by a watery-eyed mare which a lad bedizened like a clown [pg 550] was leading by the bridle. In the car sat a fat fellow whose face was painted red, and eyebrows dyed, and who wore a long artificial beard. Over a prodigious paunch, also artificial, he had drawn a long white gown, over which again he wore a many-colored rag shaped like a cope. On his head he wore a high paper cap, brimless; around the cap were three crowns of gilt paper to represent the tiara of the pope. A sorry-looking donkey walked after the car, to which it was attached by a rope. It was the rôle of the fellow in the car to address the donkey, make a sign of blessing over it, and occasionally reach it straw drawn from his artificial paunch. As often as he went through this manœuvre, the crowd set up a tremendous roar of laughter. The fat man in the car represented the pope, and the donkey was intended to symbolize the credulity of the faithful.
This mock pope was not a suggestion of Shund's or of any other inventive progressionist. The whole idea was copied from a caricature which had appeared in a widely circulating pictorial whose only aim and pleasure it has been for years to destroy the innate religious nobleness of the German people by means of shallow wit and vulgar caricatures. And this very sheet, leagued with a daily organ equally degraded, can boast of no inconsiderable success. The rude and vulgar applaud its witticisms, the low and infamous regale themselves with its pictures, and its demoralizing influence is infecting the land.
The principal feature of the procession was a wagon, hung with garlands and bestuck with small flags, drawn by six splendid horses. In it sat a youthful woman, plump and bold. Her shoulders were bare, the dress being an exaggerated sample of the style décolleté; above her head was a wreath of oak leaves. She was attended by a number of young men in masks. They carried drinking-horns, which they filled from time to time from a barrel, and presented to the bacchante, who sipped from them; then these gentlemen in waiting drank themselves, and poured what was left upon the crowd. A band of music, walking in front of this triumphal car, played airs and marches. Not even the mock pope was as great an object of admiration as this shameless woman. Old and young thronged about the wagon, feasting their lascivious eyes on this beastly spectacle which represented that most disgusting of all abominable achievements of progress—the emancipated woman. And perhaps not even progress could have dared, in less excited times, so grossly to insult the chaste spirit of the German people; but the social atmosphere had been made so foul by the abominations of the election, and the spirits of impurity had reigned so absolutely during the canvass in behalf of common schools, that this immoral show was suffered to parade without opposition.
The very commencement of this sacrilegious mockery of religion had roused Seraphin's indignation, and he had retired from the balcony. His father, however, had remained, coolly watching the procession as it passed, and carefully noting Louise's remarks and behavior.
“What does that woman represent?” he asked. “A goddess of liberty, I suppose?”
“Only in one sense, I think,” replied the progressionist young lady. “The woman wearing the crown symbolizes, to my mind, the enjoyment of life. She typifies heaven upon earth, now that exact science has done away with the heaven of the next world.”
“I should think yon creature rather reminds one of hell,” said Mr. Conrad.
“Of hell!” exclaimed Louise, in alarm. “You are jesting, sir, are you not?”
“Never more serious in my life, Louise. Notice the shameless effrontery, the baseness and infamy of the creature, and you will be forced to form conclusions which, far from justifying the expectation of peace and happiness in the family circle, the true sphere of woman, will suggest only wrangling, discord, and hell upon earth.”