* * * * *
The clarinet screeches, wails, moans and whistles. The clarinet flings an
obbligato high over the heads of the dancers on the cabaret floor. It
makes shrill sounds. It raves like a fireless Ophelia. It plays the clown,
the tragedian, the acrobat.
A whimsical insanity lurks in the music of the clarinet. It stutters
ecstasies. It postures like Tristan and whimpers like a livery-stable nag.
It grimaces like Peer Gynt and winks like a lounge lizard, a cake eater.
It is not for the feet of the dancers on the crowded cabaret floor. The
feet follow the umpah umps. The thoughts of the dancers follow the
clarinet. The thoughts of the boobilariat dance easily to the tangled
lyric of the clarinet. The thoughts tie themselves into crazy knots. The
music of the clarinet becomes like crazily uncoiling whips. The thoughts
of the dancers shake themselves loose from words under the spur of the
whips. They begin to dance, not as the feet dance. There is another rhythm
here. The rhythm of little ecstasies whimpering. Thus the thoughts of the
dancers dance--dead hopes, wearied ambitions, vanishing youth do an
inarticulate can-can in the heads of the dancers on the cabaret floor.
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