These young
men are all free-thinkers, great dancers, singers, players of the
guitar. They are immoral and slightly cynical. Their leader is the young
shopkeeper, who has lived in Vienna, who is a bit of a bounder, with a
veneer of sneering irony on an original good nature. He is well-to-do,
and gives dances to which only the looser women go, with these reckless
young men. He also gets up parties of pleasure, and is chiefly
responsible for the coming of the players to the theatre this carnival.
These young men are disliked, but they belong to the important class,
they are well-to-do, and they have the life of the village in their
hands. The clerical peasants are priest-ridden and good, because they
are poor and afraid and superstitious. There is, lastly, a sprinkling of
loose women, one who keeps the inn where the soldiers drink. These women
are a definite set. They know what they are, they pretend nothing else.
They are not prostitutes, but just loose women. They keep to their own
clique, among men and women, never wanting to compromise anybody else.
And beyond all these there are the Franciscan friars in their brown
robes, so shy, so silent, so obliterated, as they stand back in the
shop, waiting to buy the bread for the monastery, waiting obscure and
neutral, till no one shall be in the shop wanting to be served.
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