Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-22
Y 1.


This is the Arion. 1t is amazing what
people in the pursuit of enjoyment will put
up with. How they crowd you and snub
you!-and yet would you miss it? Oh, no!
Once they got up ticket of admission on
which the meaning of this wonderful an
nuaI revel was very vividly expressed
There, in blazing lithograph, was repre-
sented Prudery trotting away in high
alarm behind her fan. Sorrow taking
flight beneath a brood of ominous
ravens, the coat tails of an orthodox
minister disappearing in one corner, a
couple of the municipal police propi-
tiously asleep, and garlanded Harlequin
arising from a year-oid tomb in burst of
sunshine amid the delirious plaudits of a
parti-colored company. 1t is called ball,
but it is carnival. II is the annual out
cropping of the Teutonic instinct of violent
masquerade, caricature and gallantry.
Everything that happens in the three days
carnival in Leipsic-the most notable per-
haps of the carnivals celebrated in the
Fatherland-when the plaza in front of the
Prussan Hotel is called the Corso, and all
the men and women of the city pelt one an
other with sugar pIums, is here crowded into
eight hours time and the space comprised
within the four walls of the Metropolitan
Opera House. The Germans of New York
there are more Germans in Father Knick-
erbocker's town, believe, than there are in
the city of Leipsic-enter upon the occasion
with an enthusiasm just as great as any
evinced by their kindred over the water.
Young America, too, of late years, has
struck hands with them, and capers Just as
nimbly. The ArIon is the embodiment of
the Saxon idea of a carnival. 1t is as
IL. -.
matte fermentation, Titanic beer cask had
burst
But hear the fddles and the trumpets. 1t
is u o'clock. Now we are in for it. Now
begins the madness, while Prudery and Sor-
row fly away. Imagine broad field choked
with moving figures from border to border;
imagine tiers OF faces rising from floor to
ceiling; imagine boxes made dusky BY over
hangings of greenery and flowers, and voices
and low laughter and the popping of cham
pagne corks coming from the boxes; imag-
inc a grotto walled with roses, Cupid
shooting an arrow of fire, and fountain
throwing scented water; imagine companies
of mountebanks turning somersaults or wan
dering about in the guise of colossal geese
and turkeys; imagine space cleared here
and there so that you can see the wa1ed
floor glisten, and hired dancers performing
d
imagine bright eyes and distractingly car
mine lips, shining and alluring under PEN
dulles OF soft light; imagine the crisp rustic
of silk, the hirt of fans, the flash of devils,
the futter of dominoes and the movement
and talk and laughter of everybody-and
there you have the Arion while the vigor is
in it and before it has got heavy-eyed from
the wine and from the passage of the hours.
L see Prussian Uhlan, plainly nothing
more than boy, with dapper waist and a
mustache that looks like bit of raveled
sewing silk above Cupid's bow stained
red. The holes in his half mask show a
pair of blue eyes looking eagerly about as
he walks up and down within a certain lim-
tied space by one of the boxes. watch to
see who it is for whom he is waiting, and
presently am rewarded by flash and a
futter and glimpse, for single instant,
of vision of exceeding loveliness held in
his arms. They converse together for a
moment; then he puts both hands about her
waist, she rests both hands upon his arms,
and, leaning far apart, and looking into
each others eyes, they melt into the sea of
walters and are lost. There is Rebecca,
the Patriarch's wife, walked arm in arm
with Julius Caesar; and there is Semiramis,
very plainly recognizable as a premier
danseuse at Niblo's; she is Joined presently
by a nimble devil in red, who will dance
with her all around the place, and set her
up finally with one foot in the air, just as is
always done at the close of a pas de deux.
Let us go into the supper room for bit
of boned turkey and glass of champagne.
1t costs enough, and the waiter is not over
thankful for twice-fat fee. 1t is cooler
here, and you may smoke if you like and
watch very comfortably the dominoes at
the other tables. But you can't SIT long.
The roar and crash of the music draws you
irresistibly back into the ball room, where
seem to have resolved themselves into 10. 600
delirious bobbins that 60 up and down, up
and down, up and down until your head
aches.