Whenever a youth and a girl
come along arm-in-arm, how flagrantly shows the man's coarseness! They
are pretty, so many of these girls, delicate of feature, graceful did
but their slavery allow them natural development; and the heart sinks
as one sees them side by side with the men who are to be their
husbands....
On the terraces dancing has commenced; the players of violins,
concertinas, and penny whistles do a brisk trade among the groups
eager for a rough-and-tumble valse; so do the pickpockets. Vigorous
and varied is the jollity that occupies the external galleries,
filling now in expectation of the fireworks; indescribable the mingled
tumult that roars heavenwards. Girls linked by the half-dozen
arm-in-arm leap along with shrieks like grotesque maenads; a rougher
horseplay finds favour among the youths, occasionally leading to
fisticuffs. Thick voices bellow in fragmentary chorus; from every side
comes the yell, the cat-call, the ear-rending whistle; and as the
bass, the never-ceasing accompaniment, sounds the myriad-footed tramp,
tramp along the wooden flooring. A fight, a scene of bestial
drunkenness, a tender whispering between two lovers, proceed
concurrently in a space of five square yards.
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