Then the dancing began. The schoolmaster had read in Rabe's grammar:
Nemo saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, and had always looked upon
dancing as a species of insanity. True, he had watched puppies and
calves dancing when they felt frisky, but he did not believe that
Cicero's maxim applied to the animal world, and he was in the habit of
drawing a sharp line between men and animals. Now, as he sat watching
these young people who were quite sober, and neither hungry nor thirsty,
moving round and round to the slow measures of the concertina, he felt
as if his soul were in a swing which was being kept going by his eyes
and ears, and his right foot beat time gently on the springy turf.
He spent three hours musing and watching, then he rose. He found it
almost difficult to tear himself away; it was just as if he were
leaving a merry party to which he had been invited; but his mood had
changed; he felt more reconciled. He was at peace with the world and
pleasantly tired, as if he had been enjoying himself.
It was evening. Smart carriages passed him, the lady-occupants lolling
on the back seats and looking in their long, white theatre wraps like
corpses in their shrouds; it was fashionable then to look as if one
had been exhumed.
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