Then the sacrificial festivities began, always late in the evening.
Through the wide-open door--open, because otherwise it would not have
been possible to endure the stifling air--the stars shone into the
smoky room, which was dimly lighted by a tallow candle, with always a
thief in the candle. Near the door stood in a semi-circle the five
slaughter priestesses, each with a goose between her knees, and as
they bored holes through the skullcaps of the poor fowls, with sharp
kitchen knives--a procedure, the necessity of which I have never
understood--they sang all sorts of folk-songs, the text of which
formed a strange contrast, as well to the murderous act as to the
mournful melody. At least one had to suppose this to be the case, for
the maids, who sat on the edge of the bed with their guest from the
straw-loft between them, followed the folksongs with never-ending
merriment, and at the passages that sounded specially mournful they
even burst into cheers. Both my parents were morally strict, and they
often discussed the question, whether there were not some way to put a
stop to this insolent conduct, but they finally gave it up. My father
had a lurking suspicion that such a custom had existed in antiquity,
and, after he-had looked the matter up, said: "It is a repetition of
ancient conditions, the Roman saturnalia, or, what amounts to the same
thing, a case where the servants temporarily lord it over the
so-called lords." When he had thus classified the occurrence
historically he was satisfied, the more so as the maids always amused
him the following morning by lowering their eyes in a most unusually
modest fashion.
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