s of the performance, I felt that I certainly might go where
these children could.

At first the masquerading figures appeared to be mainly composed of
young girls of ages varying from nine to eighteen. Their costumes--if
what was often only the addition of a broad, bright-colored stripe to
the hem of a short dress could be called a COSTUME--were plain, and
seemed to indicate no particular historical epoch or character. A
general suggestion of the peasant's holiday attire was dominant in
all the costumes. Everybody was closely masked. All carried a short,
gayly-striped baton of split wood, called a Pritsche, which, when struck
sharply on the back or shoulders of some spectator or sister-masker,
emitted a clattering, rasping sound. To wander hand in hand down this
broad allee, to strike almost mechanically, and often monotonously,
at each other with their batons, seemed to be the extent of that wild
dissipation. The crowd thickened. Young men with false noses, hideous
masks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers in uniform, crowded
past each other, up and down the promenade, all carrying a Pritsche,
and exchanging blows with each other, but always with the same slow
seriousness of demeanor, which, with their silence, gave the performance
the effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps a
dozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative of
nothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at their
own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-capped
shoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to observe
him seriously, he apparently thought better of it, and slipped away.
Nevertheless, the solemn beating of Pritschen over each other's backs
went on. I remember that I was followed the whole length of the allee by
a little girl scarcely twelve years old, in a bright striped skirt and
black mask, who from time to time struck me over the shoulders with a
regularity and sad persistency that was peculiarly irresistible to
me; the more so, as I could not help thinking that it was not half as
amusing to herself. Once only did the ordinary brusque gallantry of the
Carnival spirit show itself. A man with an enormous pair of horns, like
a half-civilized satyr, suddenly seized a young girl and endeavored to
kiss her. A slight struggle ensued, in which I fancied I detected in the
girl's face and manner the confusion and embarrassment of one who
was obl