"To the country of roses we wend our way,
To the land of the rose of a day;
The flowers so fair like hay we'll mow down,
And such high stacks make of'em fine-smelling and gay,
That the eye, they'll put out, of the man in the moon
And the sun they'll make sneeze for ever and aye."
Knots of dancers crowd round the doors of the inns. The "Roselanders" invade the bar with a riot like a witches' sabbath. At each stage an enormous watering can is filled with a mixture of beer and sugar and after having taken out the rose, it is passed round from couple to couple.
The girl, assisted by the man accompanying her, moistens her lips the first in the beverage; then, with a gesture derived from the heroic times of old, she bends her body backwards, and with her bared arm, as strong as those of the males, seizes the huge vessel by the handle, brandishes it, raises it above her head, and ends by lowering it to her cavalier.
With one knee on the ground, the thirsty one plunges the pipe of the reservoir in his mouth, and pumps unceasingly, with a face of beatitude, which little Blandine could not help comparing to the ecstasy of communicants receiving the sacrament at solemn festival times. The groups have a fiddler, or an organ-player to accompany them, but
