There had been a war fought and won and the great city of the conquering people was crossed with triumphal arches and vivid with thrown flowers of white, red, and rose. All through the long spring days the returning soldiers marched up the chief highway behind the strump of drums and the joyous¹, resonant² wind of the brasses³, while merchants and clerks left their bickerings and figurings and, crowding to the windows, turned their white-bunched faces gravely upon the passing battalions⁴.

Never had there been such splendor⁵ in the great city, for the victorious⁶ war had brought plenty in its train, and the merchants had flocked thither⁷ from the South and West with their households to taste of all the luscious⁸ feasts and witness the lavish⁹ entertainments prepared — and to buy for their women furs against the next winter and bags of golden mesh¹⁰ and varicolored slippers¹² of silk and silver and rose satin and cloth of gold.

So gaily¹³ and noisily were the peace and prosperity impending¹⁴ hymned by the scribes and poets of the conquering people that more and more spenders had gathered from the provinces to drink the wine of excitement, and faster and faster did the merchants dispose of their trinkets and slippers until they sent up a