A figure resembling a murdered corpse was sprawled out in a chaise-longue on the terrace in front of the house, obviously having drunk himself into a state of oblivion. I ran into the house*, happy to get away from the automobile chase I had just endured, and immediately found myself in the midst of a bacchanalian orgy. About fifty people were crammed into four small rooms, almost all of them in fancy dress, the majority of the men dressed as women and vice versa. The wailing of a saxophone and the beat of a drum accompanied a wild dance that was snaking chaotically across the floor. The whole scene resembled the last part of Petrushka, at the point where the composer has made a note in the score: 'the Shrovetide Fair reaches its apogee'.