I
It was high carnival in Gratz city. In the evenings, a mad thronging in
the streets, a well-nigh deafening rattling of carriages, a yelling and
shouting, a flaring and glaring from the shops and stalls and from the
hundreds of lamps and numberless transparencies in the windows. Gold
and silver, silks and damasks gleamed in the shop-fronts. Masks of
every hue and shape grinned beside them. Ha, what a mad thing life can
be!
I hurried through the crowd. The clock on the castle hill struck six:
six strokes so clear that they outrang all the din and re-echoed from
the tall, light-pierced walls of the houses. The summons of the clock
is a stern admonisher: let man play as childishly as he will with
tinsel pleasures and light dalliance, it counts the hours out to him
and gives him not a minute's grace.