United States or Estonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The great bal blanc is always one of the most important events of the Nice season, and everyone of note wintering on the Riviera was there, yet all carefully masked, both men and women. "I wonder what prevented Hugh from coming with us, mother?" the girl remarked as she sat with Lady Ranscomb watching the merriment and the throwing of serpentines and confetti. "I don't know.
The more respectable a man looked who ventured into the press in ordinary clothes, the more certainly he became at once the general mark for hail-storms of 'confetti. No uniform nor distinguishing badge was respected, excepting those of the squad of cavalrymen who cleared the way, and the liveries of the Municipality's coaches.
Then the bridal carriage began to move, the bride began to smile, and rice and flowers and confetti and good wishes and slippers filled the air. Then other carriages followed, then the good folk of Camelot followed, an aged man closed the wide church doors, and the square was left to the sparrows, pink sunshine, confetti, rice, and Mary.
Then the embarrassment of gentlemen who, while quietly looking at the scene, are surrounded by groups of maskers, grimacing at them, squeaking in their ears, hugging them, dancing round them, till they snatch an opportunity to escape into some doorway; or when a poor man in a black coat and cylinder hat is whitened all over with a half-bushel of confetti and lime-dust; the mock sympathy with which his case is investigated by a company of maskers, who poke their stupid, pasteboard faces close to his, still with the unchangeable grin; or when a gigantic female figure singles out some shy, harmless personage, and makes appeals to his heart, avowing her passionate love in dumb show, and presenting him with her bouquet; and a hundred other nonsensicalities, among which the rudest and simplest are not the least effective.
It is the moment when young brothers and frivolous cousins perform impish pranks, while the parents, and maybe the bride, are feeling the keen pang of separation. Paper confetti are a harmless substitute for rice, which is not soothing to receive in the eye or ear.
And I remember, in my rambles along the famous thoroughfare, seeing a saturnine old fellow in a dingy black coat and slouch hat, with a sour snarl on his unprepossessing features, who made it his business, all day, to cuff and kick the little boys whom he caught throwing confetti, or picking up the fallen bouquets, and to shove the latter down into the sewer which ran beneath the street, through the apertures opening underneath the curb.
They were doing impossible things dancing together in the Carnival crowd, flinging confetti, bobbing and grimacing before the comic masks. Then the carnival scene seemed to turn flat, and to become a painted picture on the drop curtain of a stage, and she started up at the sound of knocks such as one hears before the curtain rises in a French theatre.
The thick carpet of confetti rustled to the tread; girls ran screaming before those who pursued them armed with handfuls of the tiny paper disks. Pipers of a Highland regiment marched piping through the throng, their Scottish kilts seeming wildly incongruous amid such a scene. Within the hotel, where the mosque lanterns glowed, one might catch a glimpse of the heads of dancers gliding shadowlike.
Looks like ve got a colored snowstorm alretty, hey?" And this caused a roar. It certainly did look like a "colored snowstorm," for the confetti was everywhere, on the table, on their heads and over their clothing. Now it was over everybody was highly amused, even Mrs. Stanhope laughing heartily. As for Aleck, he roared so loudly he could be heard a block up the docks.
As we threaded our way through the Corso, U kept wishing she could plunge into the fun and uproar as J would, and for my own part, though I pretended to take no interest in the matter, I could have bandied confetti and nosegays as readily and as riotously as any urchin there.
Word Of The Day