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Their heads done up in gay-colored kerchiefs, framing their round and rosy faces, their kit slung over their shoulders, and their kimono tucked in at their waists, they trudged along on useful pairs of ankles neatly cased in lavender gaiters. Some followed dutifully behind their husbands; others chatted along in company with their kind, members these last of some pilgrim association.
Nobly and contritely Walther bows his head, and Sachs hangs about his neck the collar of the guild. Eva, fired, takes from her lover's fair curls the laurel-wreath, and presses it upon the grisled head of the master. He stands radiant between the two whose happiness is his work. The populace wave their hats and kerchiefs, cheering, "Hail, Sachs! Hans Sachs! Hail Nuremberg's beloved Hans Sachs!"
The grouping of the people here would interest at once an artistic eye, the more so because many of the women of Cahors wear upon their heads kerchiefs of brilliant-coloured silk folded in a peculiarly graceful and picturesque manner, resembling the Bordelaise coiffure, but yet distinct.
So much for show; for use, this palace was a bewildering complication of secret drawers and pigeon-holes, all depending indeed upon one tiny gold key; but unless the use of that key were well understood, all it led to was certain outer receptacles of fragrant Spanish gloves, knots of ribbon, and kerchiefs strewn over with rose leaves and lavender.
But all were products of the desert. The high-heeled boots, the leather chaps, the kerchiefs knotted round the neck, were worn at its insistence. Upon every line of their features, every shade of their thought, it had stamped its brand indelibly. The talk was frank and elemental. It had the crisp crackle that goes with free, unfettered youth.
There were bronzed men in homespun, who pushed steadily on, aiding themselves with mighty umbrellas; dark-eyed girls, with bright kerchiefs knotted about their heads or carnations in their glossy braids; smart young contadini, with their hats tied afresh with ribbons and their long blue hose darned anew.
The finest were those made by the chequered kerchiefs of Madras. Plumes surmounted them of coloured feathers from the wing of the war-eagle, or the blue plumage of the gruya. For the rest of their costume they wore deer-skin leggings and moccasins, nearly similar to those of the trappers.
Tolerance, submission, patriotism so called, brotherly love so named all these things were to come later, as they have ever done in the development of communities, builded mainly upon the foundation of individual aggressiveness and individual centrifugence. Having arrived, we wave scented kerchiefs between us and the thought of such a beginning of our prosperity.
A little desultory conversation goes on among these stair-loungers, conversation mingled with much dreary yawning, a trained opera-singer is shaking forth chromatic roulades and trills in the great drawing-room above, there is an incessant stream of people coming and going, there is the rustle of silk and satin, perfume, shaken out of lace kerchiefs, and bouquets oppresses the warm air, the heat is excessive, and there is a never-ending monotonous hum of voices, only broken at rare intervals by the "society laugh" that unmeaning giggle on the part of the women, that strained "ha, ha, ha!" on the part of the men, which is but the faint ghostly echo of the farewell voice of true mirth.
Brilliant cottons and kerchiefs hang from the normal line; there is pomatum for the lucky dandy and tallow for the miner down in his luck; whilst gold-dust is conjured from pouch or pocket by pipes and tobacco, needles and thread, beads, knives, and other notions.
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