Farther down the lane of booths was the tent of Hayakawa the Juggler. A
little boy in primrose-coloured tights turned, on a board outside the
tent, round and round and round on his head like a teetotum, and inside,
once every half-hour, Hayakawa, in a lovely jacket of gold and silver,
gave his entertainment, eating fire, piercing himself with silver swords,
finding white mice in his toes, and pulling ribbons of crimson and scarlet
out of his ears.
Farther away again there were the Brothers Gomez, Spaniards perhaps, dark,
magnificent in figure, running on one wire across the air, balancing
sunshades on their noses, leaping, jumping, standing pyramid-high, their
muscles gleaming like billiard-balls.
And behind and before and in and out there were strange figures moving
through the Fair, strange voices raised against the evening sky, strange
smells of cooking, strange songs suddenly rising, dying as soon as heard.
Only a breath away the English fields were quietly lying safe behind their
hedges and the English sky changed from blue to green and from green to
mother-of-pearl, and from mother-of-pearl to ivory, and stars stabbed,
like silver nails, the great canopy of heaven, and the Cathedral bells
rang peal after peal above the slowly lighting town.
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