Johannes thought again of the ball in the rabbit-hole, and he saw a great deal that reminded him of it. But here everything was grander and more brilliant. The young ladies in their rich array seemed to him, when they lifted their long white arms, and turned their heads half aside in dancing, as beautiful as the elves. The servants moved around majestically, offering delicious drinks--with respectful bows. "How splendid! How splendid!" cried Johannes. "Very pretty, is it not?" said Pluizer. "But you must look a little farther than just to the end of your nose. You see nothing now, do you, but lovely, laughing faces? Well, almost all those smiles are false and affected. Those kindly old ladies at the side there sit like anglers around a pond; their young girls are the bait, the gentlemen are the fishes. However well they like to chat together, they enviously begrudge one another every catch. If one of those young ladies is pleased, it is because she is dressed more beautifully, or attracts more attention than the others. And the pleasure of the men chiefly consists in those bare arms and necks. Behind all those laughing eyes and friendly lips lurks something quite different. Even those apparently obsequious servants are far from being respectful. If it suddenly became clear what each one really thought, the party would soon break up." And as Pluizer pointed it out to him, Johannes plainly saw the affectation in faces and gestures; and the vanity, envy, and weariness which peeped from behind the smiling masks, or suddenly appeared as soon as they were laid aside. "Well," said Pluizer, "they must do as they think best. Such people must amuse themselves, and this is the only way they know." Johannes felt that some one was standing behind him, and he looked round. It was the well-known, tall figure. The pale face was whimsically lighted by the glare, so that the eyes formed large, dark depressions. He murmured softly to himself, and pointed with a finger into the lighted palace. "Look!" said Pluizer. "He is making another selection." Johannes looked where the finger pointed. He saw the old lady, even as she was speaking, shut her eyes and put her hand to her head, and the beautiful young girl stay her slow step, and stare before her with a slight shiver. "When?" asked Pluizer of Death. "That is my affair," said the latter. "I should like to show Johannes this same company still another time," said Pluizer, with a wink and a grin. "May I?" "To-night?" asked Death. "Why not?" said Pluizer. "In that place is neither hour nor time. What now is has always been, and what is to be, already is." "I cannot go with you," said Death. "I have too much to do; but speak the name that we both know, and you can find the way without me."