经典！《喀尔巴阡古堡，牛博士》让无数读者意犹未尽！(9)

"What would happen then?" Commissary Passauf asked himself in terror. "How could this wild fury be checked? How to soothe these goaded temperaments? My office would be no longer a sinecure, and the council would have to double my salary- unless it should arrest me myself, for disturbing the public peace!"
These very reasonable fears began to be realised. The-infection spread from change, the theatre, the church, the town-hall, the academy, the market, into the dwelling houses, and that in less than a fortnight after that terrible performance of the Huguenots.
Its first symptoms appeared in the house of Collaert, the banker.
That wealthy personage was holding a ball, or at least a dancing party, for the notabilities of the town. He had issued, some months before, a loan of thirty thousand francs, three quarters of which had been subscribed; and, to celebrate this financial success, he had opened his drawing-rooms, and given a party to his fellow-citizens.
Everybody knows that Flemish parties are innocent and tranquil enough, the principal expense of which is usually in beer and fruit drinks. Some conversation on the weather, the look of the crops, the fine condition of the gardens, the Care of the flowers, and especially of the tulips; a slow and measured dance from time to time, perhaps a minuets; sometimes a waltz, but one of those German waltzes which achieve a turn and a half per minute, and during which the dancers hold each other as far apart as their arms will permit, such is the usual type of the balls attended by the aristocratic society of Quiquendone. The polka, after being altered to four time, had tried to become accustomed to it; but the dancers always lagged behind the orchestra, no matter how slow the measure, and it had to be abandoned.