Parade.

Very sturdy rogues.


Several have exploited your worlds.


With no needs, and in no hurry to make use of their brilliant faculties and their knowledge of your consciences.


What ripe men!


Eyes listless like the summer night, reddened and blackish, tricolored, steel studded with gold stars;


Features twisted, leaden, bloodless, gutted.


Burlesque hoarsenesses! The merciless posturings of tinsel!


Some are young--what would they think of Cherubino?--with bloodcurdling voices and some dangerous equipment.



They are sent to town, tricked out with nauseating luxury.



O the most violent Paradise of the furious grimace!


Not to be compared with your Fakirs and other theatrical buffooneries.


In costumes improvised with the taste of bad dreams, they enact sad songs and tragedies of thieves and demigods more uplifting than history or religion has ever managed to be!


Chinese, Hottentots, gypsies, nitwits, hyenas, Molochs, old lunacies, sinister demons, they mix much-loved old-time maternal ditties with bestial winks and caresses.


They would interpret new plays, "romantic" songs.


Master jugglers, they can transform both the scene and the characters: they use magnetic tricks.


Eyes glisten, blood sings, bones swell, tears and little red trickles flow.


Their horseplay or their panic terror may last a minute or whole months.


I alone have the key to this savage side show.