But when he reappeared he was carrying
in his hand, not a sword, but an ax.
The incongruity between the masquerade and the mystery had created a
curious psychological atmosphere. At first they had all felt
horribly ashamed at being caught in the foolish disguises of a
festival, by an event that had only too much the character of a
funeral. Many of them would have already gone back and dressed in
clothes that were more funereal or at least more formal. But somehow
at the moment this seemed like a second masquerade, more artificial
and frivolous than the first. And as they reconciled themselves to
their ridiculous trappings, a curious sensation had come over some
of them, notably over the more sensitive, like Crane and Fisher and
Juliet, but in some degree over everybody except the practical Mr.
Brain. It was almost as if they were the ghosts of their own
ancestors haunting that dark wood and dismal lake, and playing some
old part that they only half remembered. The movements of those
colored figures seemed to mean something that had been settled long
before, like a silent heraldry. Acts, attitudes, external objects,
were accepted as an allegory even without the key; and they knew
when a crisis had come, when they did not know what it was.
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