k from her forehead, twisted tight from the nape of
the neck to the crown of the head, stiffened with glue, glistening with
oil, and made into four huge double wings, which stood out beyond her
ears on either side. It looked a little like two gigantic black satin
bats, pinned to the back of her head, or still more like a windmill gone
into mourning."] The bat-like flaps projected so far on each side of
each head that each woman seemed almost to be joined to her neighbors by
a cartilaginous band; and, as they sat almost motionless, this effect
was heightened.

The stage had no pretence of secrecy. It was hung with gay banners and
mysterious labels. Tall plumes of peacock's feathers in the corners and
some irregularly placed chairs were all the furniture. The orchestra sat
in chairs at the back of the stage. Some of them smoked in the
intervals, some drank tea. A little boy who drummed went out when he
felt like it; and the fellow with the biggest gong had evidently no plan
of operations at all except to gong as long as his arms could bear it,
then rest a minute, then gong again.

"Oh, well," said we, as we wedged and squeezed through the narrow
passage-way which led to our box, "it will only last a few minutes. We
shall not entirely lose our hearing." Fatal delusion. It never stopped.
The actors came out; the play began; the play went on; still the
hideous hubbub of din continued, and was made unspeakably more hideous
by the voices of the actors, which were raised to the shrillest falsetto
to surmount the noise, and which sounded like nothing in nature except
the voices of frantic cats....

At first, in spite of the deafening loudness of the din, it is ludicrous
beyond conception. To see the superbly dressed Chinese creatures,--every
one of them as perfectly and exquisitely dressed as the finest figures
on their satin fans or rice-paper pictures, and looking exactly like
them,--to see these creatures strutting and sailing and sweeping and
bowing and bending, beating their breasts and tearing their beards,
gesticulating and rushing about in an utterly incomprehensible play,
with caterwauling screams issuing from their mouths, is for a few
minutes so droll that you laugh till tears run, and think you will go to
the Chinese Theatre every night as long as you stay in San Francisco. I
said so to the friend who had politely gone with me. He had been to the
performance before. He smiled pityingly, and yawned behind his hand.