lacquered wood, representing foxes, which, as they pass, hide human
faces,--hideous livid masks.

In the gardens and outbuildings of the temple the most inconceivable
mountebanks have taken up their quarters, their black streamers,
painted with white letters, looking like funereal trappings as they
float in the wind from the top of their tall flagstaffs. Hither we
turn out steps, as soon as our mousmés have ended their orisons and
bestowed their alms.

In one of the booths a man stretched on a table, flat on his back, is
alone on the stage; puppets of almost human size, with horribly
grinning masks, spring out of his body; they speak, gesticulate, then
fall back like empty rags; with a sudden spring, they start up again,
change their costumes, change their faces, tearing about in one
continual frenzy. Suddenly three, even four appear at the same time;
they are nothing more than the four limbs of the outstretched man,
whose legs and arms, raised on high, are each one dressed up, and
capped with a wig under which peers a mask; between these phantoms
tremendous fighting and battling take place, and many a sword-thrust
is exchanged. The most fearful of all is a certain puppet representing
an hag; every time she appears, with her weird head and ghastly grin,
the lights burn low, the music of the accompanying orchestra moans
forth a sinister strain given by the flutes, mingled with a rattling
tremolo which sounds like the clatter of bones. This creature
evidently plays an ugly part in the piece,--that of a horrible old
ghoul, spiteful and famished. Still more appalling than her person is
her shadow, which, projected upon a white screen, is abnormally and
vividly distinct; by means of some unknown process this shadow, which
nevertheless follows all her movements, assumes the aspect of a wolf.