2: The Fancy Dress Party

Here are little boys like knights of old, and little girls who are heroines. Here are shepherdesses with dresses looped up in paniers and garlands of roses, and shepherds in satin suits with knots of ribbons on their shepherd’s crooks. Dear me, what pretty white sheep such shepherds must have in their flocks! And here are Alexander and Zarius, Pyerhus and Merope, Mahomet, Harlequin, Scapin, Blaise and Babette. They have come from everywhere, from Greece and Rome and blue distant countries, to dance with one another. It’s a fine thing, a fancy dress ball, and very agreeable for an hour or two to be a great king or an illustrious princess. It has no inconveniences. You have not to sustain your costumes by actions or even by your words.

It would not be very amusing to wear a hero’s dress if you had to show his courage too. The hearts of heroes are torn in all sorts of ways. For the most part they are famous through their misfortunes. If any of them lived happily they are not remembered now. Merope never cared about dancing. Pyerhus was wickedly killed by Orestes just as he was going to be married, and the innocent Zarius perished at the hands of the Turk his friend, a philosophical trick indeed. As to Blaise and Babette the song says that their pangs of love were never-ending.

In the same way, if it comes to Pierrot and Scapin, you know as well as I that they were perfect rascals, and that people more than once tweaked their ears for them. No, glory comes very high, even the glory of an Harlequin. On the other hand it’s very nice to be a little boy or girl and masquerade as these old characters. That’s why there’s no fun like a fancy ball where the costumes are fine enough. You feel grand just by wearing them. See how well all the pretty company wears its plumes and cloaks. What a fine and gallant air they have, how well they look and how much old time grace they can display.

On the balcony, in the part that you don’t see in the picture, the musicians tune their violins with a sweet and plaintive sound. The music of a quadrille in the grand style is open on the leader’s desk. They are going to strike up this piece. At the first notes of it our heroes and masks will step forth and dance.