Even as he spoke, new maskers entered: women dressed as men, with beards and moustaches of burnt cork, betraying themselves by their figures and looking like characters in comic opera; men in women’s clothes, tripping over their skirts. Here was the student Rasmussen in a black jet-trimmed toilet, displaying a pimpled décolleté and fanning himself front and back with a paper fan; there was a Pierrot, costumed in white underwear, with a lady’s felt hat, a powdered face that gave his eyes an unnatural expression, and lips garish with bloodred pomade—the youth with the fingernail. A Greek from the “bad” Russian table, who rejoiced in beautiful legs, strutted in tights, with short cloak, paper ruff, and dagger, personating a fairy prince, or a Spanish grandee. All these costumes had been improvised since the end of the meal. Frau Stöhr could sit still no longer. She too disappeared, and presently returned dressed as a charwoman, with skirt looped up and sleeves rolled back; a paper cap tied under her chin, armed with pail and brush; she began scrubbing about under the tables, among the feet of those still sitting.
925