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Here was an open grove, with a floor of turf; over this green

carpet, among the white trunks of the birches, under the canopy

of luxuriant drooping boughs, roamed a multitude of forms, whose

strange dance-like motions and strange costumes made one think

them ghosts, wandering by the light of the moon. Some were in

tight black garments, others in long, flowing robes, bright as

snow; one wore a hat broad as a hoop, another was bare-headed;

some, as if they had been wrapt in a cloud, in walking spread out

on the breeze veils that trailed behind their heads as the tail

behind a comet. Each had a different posture: one had grown into

the earth, and only turned about his downcast eyes; another,

looking straight before him, as if in a dream, seemed to be

walking along a line, turning neither to the right nor to the

left. But all continually bent down to the ground in various

directions, as if making deep bows.