And so everyone was floating on with these comfortable convictions--floating on toward the imminent cataclysm, smiling pityingly on the few lugubrious Andersons who were right.
Balls and dancing are a notable expression of life and character in Germany. The Teuton has a passion for them. In what country are they so institutional? The German dance music is on the whole by far the best any land has composed. The waltzes are fine productions of the race. They are not enemic, lascivious or empty of meaning. They are noble, wholesome and full-throbbing with the pounding blood of men and women.
German balls are most varied in kind, responding to the complete scale of existence from high to low. However dowdy, rigid, ungainly or sensual they may be, their music is nearly always elevating or at least of merit because it is written by thoroughly trained composers of whom Germany has a full complement. One of the dreams of any American woman in Europe has been to dance with a German officer who, in his handsome, well-fitting uniform setting off his commanding proportions and guarded forcefully by his clattering sword and jingling spurs, appealed to those instincts for knightliness and chivalric appearance which excite the feminine nature.
Nevertheless the general unloveliness of the social disposition and activities of the Teutons is normally reflected in their balls, and is increased by their tremendous and perspiring energies in this diversion where usually pervades an atmosphere thick with the odors of beer, sausage, cheese.
The Royal Court Ball opened the fashionable season every winter in Dresden as proper in an orthodox monarchy. It was Kirtley's one opportunity to view German royalty, in its intimacy of pumps and low necks, at a ceremonious function in a whirl of music and the dance. Naturally he wanted to be present with Elsa who was, of course, competent in the art of Terpsichore. To say the least she was the only young lady he knew well in Saxony, and to have her hair of ripe corn color dancing in its luxuriance before his eyes to the inspiring melodies of the opera bands would be something to thrill him and his memories afterward. He would take a box and somehow manage to moor Frau Bucher in its depths.