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The dance had
begun, and we adjourned to the temple. Within it was a drinking-saloon;
and all around it was a broad circular platform for the dancers.
I backed up against the wall of the temple, and waited. Twenty sets
formed, the music struck up, and then--I placed my hands before
my face for very shame. But I looked through my fingers. They were
dancing the renowned Can-can. A handsome girl in the set before
me tripped forward lightly to meet the opposite gentleman--tripped
back again, grasped her dresses vigorously on both sides with her
hands, raised them pretty high, danced an extraordinary jig that
had more activity and exposure about it than any jig I ever saw
before, and then, drawing her clothes still higher, she advanced
gaily to the center and launched a vicious kick full at her vis_a_vis
that must infallibly have removed his nose if he had been seven
feet high. It was a mercy he was only six.
That is the
Can-can. The idea of it is to dance as wildly, as noisily, as furiously
as you can; expose yourself as much as possible if you are a woman;
and kick as high as you can, no matter which sex you belong to.
There is no word of exaggeration in this. Any of the staid, respectable,
aged people who were there that night can testify to the truth of
that statement. There were a good many such people present. I suppose
French morality is not of that strait-laced description which is
shocked at trifles.
I moved aside
and took a general view of the Can-can. Shouts, laughter, furious
music, a bewildering chaos of darting and intermingling forms, stormy
jerking and snatching of gay dresses, bobbing heads, flying arms,
lightning flashes of white-stockinged calves and dainty slippers
in the air, and then a grand final rush, riot, a terrific hubbub,
and a wild stampede! Heavens! Nothing like it has been seen on earth
since trembling Tam O'Shanter saw the devil and the witches at their
orgies that stormy night in Alloway's auld haunted kirk.
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