The next scene is called “The Ball in the Man’s House.” It is a huge room with great columns placed in a circle. Beyond the columns all is shadow, and the room is brilliant with cold, artificial light. Everything in the house is rich and gilded. An orchestra is playing; three little black puppets, one scraping the violin, one the ’cello, and the third blowing the flute. They only play one tune, a lively, monotonous and foolish polka. [Music] Under each column a guest is seated, stiff and lifeless as a waxwork: They are old, wrinkled, painted, bedaubed and ridiculous. The women guests are dressed in silk, satins, tinsel, and gaudy jewels; the men are like expensive, pompous dolls, some in uniform, some covered with orders, others in black and white clothes; they are all quite expressionless. In the centre of the room young men and girls are dancing the polka, and they dance and disappear in and out of the columns. The figure in grey stands in one corner of the room and two-thirds of his candle have been consumed. The guests talk. Here is the beginning of their conversation-- “I must observe that it is a great honour to be invited to the Man’s ball.” “You may add that this honour is given to extremely few. The whole town tried to get asked; very few were chosen. My husband, my children and myself are all proud of the honour the most highly-to-be-honoured Man has paid us.” “I am sorry for those who were not asked, they will not be able to sleep all night for envy; and to-morrow they will invent calumnies about the tediousness of the Man’s ball.” “They never saw such magnificence.” “You might add such extraordinary magnificence and luxury.” “And I say such enchanting and unceasing amusement. If this is not amusing I should like to know what is amusing!” “Stop; it is useless arguing with people who are tormented by envy. They will say to you, that the chairs on which we are sitting were not of gold at all.” “That they were the simplest wooden chairs bought at a second-hand shop!” “That there was no electric light here, but ordinary tallow candles. They will have the face to deny that the pictures had such broad, gold frames. I seem to hear the sound of gold.” “You see its gleam; that is enough, I think.” “I seldom enjoyed music so much as at the balls of the Man. It is divine music and it lifts the soul into the higher spheres.” “I should hope that the music was good considering what is paid for it; you should add that this is the best orchestra in the town; it plays on the greatest occasions.” “You hear this music long afterwards; it takes the soul captive. My children, when they return from the balls of the Man, keep on humming the music a long time afterwards.” And they continue to talk in detail of the splendour of the house of the Man, of his riches, of his many rooms, his numerous houses, his wonderfully appointed bathrooms, and they all say in chorus-- “How rich!” “How splendid!” “How gorgeous!” “How rich!”