of Nature's irony, there was graven on her face
alone of all those faces, the true look of rebellion; a haughty, almost
fierce, uneasy look--an untamed look. On all the other thousand faces
one could see no bitterness, no fierceness, not even enthusiasm; only a
half-stolid, half-vivacious patience and eagerness as of children going
to a party.
The band played; and they began to march.
Laughing, talking, waving flags, trying to keep step; with the same
expression slowly but surely coming over every face; the future was not;
only the present--this happy present of marching behind the discordance
of a brass band; this strange present of crowded movement and laughter in
open air.
We others--some dozen accidentals like myself, and the tall, grey-haired
lady interested in "the people," together with those few kind spirits in
charge of "the show"--marched too, a little self-conscious, desiring with
a vague military sensation to hold our heads up, but not too much, under
the eyes of the curious bystanders. These--nearly all men--were
well-wishers, it was said, though their faces, pale from their own work
in shop or furnace, expressed nothing but apathy. They wished well, very
dumbly, in the presence of this new thing, as if they found it queer that
women should be doing something for themselves; queer and rather
dangerous. A few, indeed, shuffled along between the column and the
little hopeless shops and grimy factory sheds, and one or two accompanied
their women, carrying the baby. Now and then there passed us some
better-to-do citizen-a housewife, or lawyer's clerk, or ironmonger, with
lips pressed rather tightly together and an air of taking no notice of
this disturbance of traffic, as though the whole thing were a rather poor
joke which they had already heard too often.
So, with laughter and a continual crack of voices our jay-like crew swung
on, swaying and thumping in the strange ecstasy of irreflection, happy to
be moving they knew not where, nor greatly why, under the visiting sun,
to the sound of murdered music. Whenever the band stopped playing,
discipline became as tatterdemalion as the very flags and garments; but
never once did they lose that look of essential order, as if indeed they
knew that, being the worst-served creatures in the Christian world, they
were the chief guardians of the inherent dignity of man.
Hatless, in the very front row, marched a tall slip of a girl,
arrow-straight, and so thin
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