As if stung by tarantulas,they sprang, laughed, rejoiced, as if in their ecstacies they weregoing to embrace all the world.
  The Dryad felt herself torn with them into the whirl of the dance.Round her delicate foot clung the silken boot, chestnut brown incolor, like the ribbon that floated from her hair down upon her bareshoulders. The green silk dress waved in large folds, but did notentirely hide the pretty foot and ankle.
  Had she come to the enchanted Garden of Armida? What was thename of the place?
  The name glittered in gas-jets over the entrance. It was"Mabille."
  The soaring upwards of rockets, the splashing of fountains, andthe popping of champagne corks accompanied the wild bacchanticdance. Over the whole glided the moon through the air, clear, but witha somewhat crooked face.
  A wild joviality seemed to rush through the Dryad, as though shewere intoxicated with opium. Her eyes spoke, her lips spoke, but thesound of violins and of flutes drowned the sound of her voice. Herpartner whispered words to her which she did not understand, nor do weunderstand them. He stretched out his arms to draw her to him, buthe embraced only the empty air.
  The Dryad had been carried away, like a rose-leaf on the wind.Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on atower. The beacon light shone from the goal of her longing, shone fromthe red lighthouse tower of the Fata Morgana of the Champ de Mars.Thither she was carried by the wind. She circled round the tower;the workmen thought it was a butterfly that had come too early, andthat now sank down dying.
  The moon shone bright, gas-lamps spread light around, throughthe halls, over the all-world's buildings scattered about, over therose-hills and the rocks produced by human ingenuity, from whichwaterfalls, driven by the power of "Master Bloodless," fell down.The caverns of the sea, the depths of the lakes, the kingdom of thefishes were opened here. Men walked as in the depths of the deep pond,and held converse with the sea, in the diving-bell of glass. The waterpressed against the strong glass walls above and on every side. Thepolypi, eel-like living creatures, had fastened themselves to thebottom, and stretched out arms, fathoms long, for prey. A big turbotwas making himself broad in front, quietly enough, but not withoutcasting some suspicious glances aside. A crab clambered over him,looking like a gigantic spider, while the shrimps wandered about inrestless haste, like the butterflies and moths of the sea.
  In the fresh water grew water-lilies, nymphaea, and reeds; thegold-fishes stood up below in rank and file, all turning their headsone way, that the streaming water might flow into their mouths. Fatcarps stared at the glass wall with stupid eyes. They knew that theywere here to be exhibited, and that they had made the somewhattoilsome journey hither in tubs filled with water; and they thoughtwith dismay of the land-sickness from which they had suffered socruelly on the railway.
  They had come to see the Exhibition, and now contemplated itfrom their fresh or salt-water position. They looked attentively atthe crowds of people who passed by them early and late. All thenations in the world, they thought, had made an exhibition of theirinhabitants, for the edification of the soles and haddocks, pike andcarp, that they might give their opinions upon the different kinds.
  "Those are scaly animals" said a little slimy Whiting. "They puton different scales two or three times a day, and they emit soundswhich they call speaking. We don't put on scales, and we makeourselves understood in an easier way, simply by twitching the cornersof our mouths and staring with our eyes. We have a great manyadvantages over mankind."
  "But they have learned swimming of us," remarked a well-educatedCodling. "You must know I come from the great sea outside. In thehot time of the year the people yonder go into the water; first theytake off their scales, and then they swim. They have learnt from thefrogs to kick out with their hind legs, and row with their forepaws. But they cannot hold out long. They want to be like us, but theycannot come up to us. Poor people!"