The Potiphar Papers | Page 7

ascetic, and do not suppose a man
is damned because he dances. But Life is not a ball (more's the pity,
truly, for these butterflies), nor is its sole duty and delight, dancing.
When I consider this spectacle,--when I remember what a noble and
beautiful woman is, what a manly man,--when I reel, dazzled by this
glare, drunken with these perfumes, confused by this alluring music,
and reflect upon the enormous sums wasted in a pompous profusion
that delights no one,--when I look around upon all this rampant
vulgarity in tinsel and Brussels lace, and think how fortunes go, how
men struggle and lose the bloom of their honesty, how women hide in a
smiling pretence, and eye with caustic glances their neighbor's newer
house, diamonds, or porcelain, and observe their daughters, such as
these,--why, I tremble and tremble, and this scene to-night, every
'crack' ball this winter will be, not the pleasant society of men and
women, but--even in this young country--an orgie such as rotting
Corinth saw, a frenzied festival of Rome in its decadence."
There was a sober truth in this bitterness, and we turned away to escape
the sombre thought of the moment. Addressing one of the panting
Houris who stood melting in a window, we spoke (and confess how
absurdly) of the Düsseldorf Gallery. It was merely to avoid saying how
warm the room was, and how pleasant the party was; facts upon which
we had already sufficiently enlarged. "Yes, they are pretty pictures; but
la! how long it must have taken Mr. Düsseldorf to paint them all;" was
the reply.
By the Farnesian Hercules! no Roman sylph in her city's decline would
ever have called the sun-god, Mr. Apollo. We hope that Houri melted
entirely away in the window, but we certainly did not stay to see.

Passing out toward the supper-room we encountered two young men.
"What, Hal," said one, "you at Mrs. Potiphar's?" It seems that Hal was a
sprig of one of the old "families." "Well, Joe," said Hal, a little
confused, "it is a little strange. The fact is I didn't mean to be here, but I
concluded to compromise by coming, and not being introduced to the
host." Hal could come, eat Potiphar's supper, drink his wines, spoil his
carpets, laugh at his fashionable struggles, and affect the puppyism of a
foreign Lord, because he disgraced the name of a man who had done
some service somewhere, while Potiphar was only an honest man who
made a fortune.
The supper-room was a pleasant place. The table was covered with a
chaos of supper. Everything sweet and rare, and hot and cold, solid and
liquid, was there. It was the very apotheosis of gilt gingerbread. There
was a universal rush and struggle. The charge of the guards at Waterloo
was nothing to it. Jellies, custards, oyster-soup, ice-cream, wine and
water, gushed in profuse cascades over transparent precipices of tulle,
muslin, gauze, silk, arid satin. Clumsy boys tumbled against costly
dresses and smeared them with preserves,--when clean plates failed, the
contents of plates already used were quietly "chucked" under the
table--heeltaps of champagne were poured into the oyster tureens or
overflowed upon plates to clear the glasses--wine of all kinds flowed in
torrents, particularly down the throats of very young men, who evinced
their manhood by becoming noisy, troublesome, and disgusting, and
were finally either led, sick, into the hat room, or carried out of the way,
drunk. The supper over, the young people attended by their matrons
descended to the dancing-room for the "German." This is a dance
commencing usually at midnight or a little after, and continuing
indefinitely toward daybreak. The young people were attended by their
matrons, who were there to supervise the morals and manners of their
charges. To secure the performance of this duty, the young people took
good care to sit where the matrons could not see them, nor did they, by
any chance, look toward the quarter in which the matrons sat. In that
quarter through all the varying mazes of the prolonged dance, to two
o'clock, to three, to four, sat the bediamonded dowagers, the mothers,
the matrons,--against nature, against common sense. They babbled with
each other, they drowsed, they dozed. Their fans fell listless into their
laps. In the adjoining room, out of the waking sight, even, of the then

sleeping mammas, the daughters whirled in the close embrace of
partners who had brought down bottles of champagne from the
supper-room, and put them by the side of their chairs for occasional
refreshment during the dance. The dizzy hours staggered by--"Azalia,
you must come now," had been already said a dozen times, but only as
by the scribes. Finally it was declared with authority. Azalia
went,--Amelia--Arabella. The rest followed. There was a prolonged
cloaking,