shonored and adored.

Vanitas vanitatum! Under the thirsty soil, under the ill-paved streets,
under the arid turf, the Legions lay dead, with the Carthaginians they
had borne down under the mighty pressure of their phalanx; and the
Byzantine ranks were dust, side by side with the soldiers of Gelimer.
And here, above the graves of two thousand centuries, the little light
feet of Cigarette danced joyously in that triumph of the Living, who
never remember that they also are dancing onward to the tomb.

It was a low-roofed, white-plastered, gaudily decked, smoke-dried
mimicry of the guinguettes beyond Paris. The long room, that was an
imitation of the Salle de Mars on a Lilliputian scale, had some bunches
of lights flaring here and there, and had its walls adorned with laurel
wreaths, stripes of tri-colored paint, vividly colored medallions of the
Second Empire, and a little pink gauze flourished about it, that flashed
into brightness under the jets of flame--trumpery, yet trumpery which,
thanks to the instinct of the French esprit, harmonized and did not
vulgarize; a gift French instinct alone possesses. The floor was bare
and well polished; the air full of tobacco smoke, wine fumes, brandy
odors, and an overpowering scent of oil, garlic and pot au feu. Riotous
music pealed through it, that even in its clamor kept a certain silvery
ring, a certain rhythmical cadence. Pipes were smoked, barrack slang,
camp slang, barriere slang, temple slang, were chattered volubly.
Theresa's songs were sung by bright-eyed, sallow-cheeked Parisiennes,
and chorused by the lusty lungs of Zouaves and Turcos. Good humor
prevailed, though of a wild sort; the mad gallop of the Rigolboche had
just flown round the room, like lightning, to the crash and the tumult
of the most headlong music that ever set the spurred heels stamping and
grisettes' heels flying; and now where the crowds of soldiers and women
stood back to leave her a clear place, Cigarette was dancing alone.

She had danced the cancan; she had danced since sunset; she had danced
till she had tired out cavalrymen, who could go days and nights in the
saddle without a sense of fatigue, and made Spahis cry quarter, who
never gave it by any chance in the battlefield; and she was dancing now
like a little Bacchante, as fresh as if she had just sprung up from a
long summer day's rest. Dancing as she would dance only now and then,
when caprice took her, and her wayward vivacity was at the hei