t returned from her evening's party; and, as she sprang from the
carriage-step with feverish impatience, I heard her murmur "At last!"

I, when I left Paulette's family, said "So soon!"

CHAPTER II. THE CARNIVAL

February 20th

What a noise out of doors! What is the meaning of these shouts and
cries? Ah! I recollect: this is the last day of the Carnival, and the
maskers are passing.

Christianity has not been able to abolish the noisy bacchanalian
festivals of the pagan times, but it has changed the names. That which
it has given to these "days of liberty" announces the ending of the
feasts, and the month of fasting which should follow; carn-ival means,
literally, "farewell to flesh!" It is a forty days' farewell to the
"blessed pullets and fat hams," so celebrated by Pantagruel's minstrel.
Man prepares for privation by satiety, and finishes his sin thoroughly
before he begins to repent.

Why, in all ages and among every people, do we meet with some one of
these mad festivals? Must we believe that it requires such an effort
for men to be reasonable, that the weaker ones have need of rest at
intervals? The monks of La Trappe, who are condemned to silence by their
rule, are allowed to speak once in a month, and on this day they all
talk at once from the rising to the setting of the sun.

Perhaps it is the same in the world. As we are obliged all the year to
be decent, orderly, and reasonable, we make up for such a long restraint
during the Carnival. It is a door opened to the incongruous fancies and
wishes that have hitherto been crowded back into a corner of our brain.
For a moment the slaves become the masters, as in the days of the
Saturnalia, and all is given up to the "fools of the family."

The shouts in the square redouble; the troops of masks increase--on
foot, in carriages, and on horseback. It is now who can attract the most
attention by making a figure for a few hours, or by exciting curiosity
or envy; to-morrow they will all return, dull and exhausted, to the
employments and troubles of yesterday.

Alas! thought I with vexation, each of us is like these masqueraders;
our whole life is often but an unsightly Carnival! And yet man has need
of holidays, to relax his mind, rest his body, and open his heart. Can
he not have them, then, with these coarse pleasures? Economists have
been long inquiring what is the best disposal of the industry of the
human race. Ah! if I could only discover the best di