But though all the men in the town, excepting those who were disabled by wounds, were on the streets and squares through which the women were to pass, there was a silence like a spell upon the vast multitude. It was a perfectly noiseless congregation that had gathered there. Anything like gossip or badinage were as utterly absent as they would have been from before the altar of a cathedral. Truly there was no place for speech in that strange concourse, and Mr. Lister and I took our places in it without uttering a word. A feeling of solemnity akin to awe had taken possession of me. I recalled Mr. Lister’s words when he first told me of the parade: “The women wish man to see in a simple panorama exactly what woman has been up to this day.” What could the panorama be? But I did not have long to wait. And the tense excitement of the moment when the women appeared on the bridge, toward which all eyes were strained, how can I describe it! It seemed for a moment to make me dizzy. When the mist which swam before my eyes had cleared away, the head of a majestic host had crossed the bridge, and was slowly advancing, without noise or gesture, toward the spot where I stood. Seen from a little distance, I remember a first vague impression that the women had taken great liberties with the fashions that had existed when I last saw them. I called to mind that Mr. Lister had told me that among the other relics of what had become to them an obsolete and withered past, the women had cast off many of the unreasoning fetters of fashion that they had spent much earnest study and practical experiment in their retirement in finding the most natural and comely dress for women. I will not say that the sight of woman in any garb would not have been thrilling under such strange circumstances as those under which I was now about to behold her, but certainly the women who were approaching me were dressed with a simplicity and taste such as I had never before seen. Their comely outlines seemed invested with a new sense of freedom of motion such as one might have who had been suddenly released from a weary, dragging ball and chain. But all thought of the vesture of these self-banished daughters of the Universe vanished like a breath the instant they drew near enough for me to note the rise and fall of their tremulous bosoms, to search their serious faces, and to study the arrangement of their noiseless and modest pageant. Their speechless procession was divided in a way that I did not at first comprehend, but there was a sense of plain, critical sincerity about it, a perception that it was intended to be a bare exposition of simple, unvarnished truth, that sharpened my intellect so that I was not long in perceiving its vivid meaning.