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group of rowdies who actually took advantage of this aspect of the festival, the majority of the citizens very much content to stay on the sidelines. 

    As far as being able to illuminate the meaning of this custom, my three young friends were quite useless. To them it was just amusement, as I imagine it was to the majority of Mirocavians. This was understandable. I suppose the average person would not be able to explain exactly how the profoundly familiar Christmas holiday came to be celebrated in its present form. 

    I left the bar alone and not unaffected by the drinks I 

    had consumed there. Outside, the general merrymaking continued. Loud music emanated from several quarters. Mirocaw had fully transformed itself from a sedate small town to an enclave of Saturnalia within the dark immensity of a winter night. But Saturn is also the planetary symbol of melancholy and sterility, a clash of opposites contained within that single word. And as I wandered half-drunkenly down the street, I discovered that there was a conflict within the winter festival itself. This discovery indeed appeared to be that secret key which Thoss withheld in 

    his study of the town. Oddly enough, it was through my unfamiliarity with the outward nature of the festival that I came to know its true nature. 

    I was mingling with the crowd on the street, warmly enjoying the confusion around me, when I saw a strangely designed creature lingering on the corner up ahead. It was one of the Mirocaw clowns. Its clothes were shabby and nondescript, almost in the style of a tramp-type clown, but not humorously exaggerated enough. The face, though, made up for the lackluster costume. I had never seen such a strange conception for a clown's countenance. The figure stood beneath a dim streetlight, and when it turned its head my way I realized why it seemed familiar. The thin, 

    smooth, and pale head; the wide eyes; the oval-shaped features resembling nothing so much as the skull-faced, screaming creature in that famous painting (memory 

    fails me). This clownish imitation rivalled the original in suggesting stricken realms of abject horror and despair: an inhuman likeness more proper to something under the earth than upon it. 

    From the first moment I saw this creature, I thought of those inhabitants of the ghetto down the hill. There was the same nauseating passivity and languor in its bearing. Perhaps if I had not been drinking earlier I would not 

    have been bold enough to take the action I did. I decided to join in one of the upstanding traditions of the winter festival, for it annoyed me to see this morbid impostor of a clowrt standing up. When I reached the corner I laughingly pushed myself into the creature "Whoops!"-who stumbled backward and ended up on the sidewalk. I laughed again and looked around for approval from the festivalers in the vicinity. No one, however, seemed 

    to appreciate or even acknowledge what I had done. 

    They did not laugh with me or point with amusement, 

    but only passed by, perhaps walking a little faster until they were some distance from this streetcorner incident. 

    I realized instantly I had violated some tacit rule of behavior, though I had thought my action well within 

    the common practice. The idea occured to me that I 

    might even be apprehended and prosecuted for what in any other circumstances was certainly a criminal act. I turned around to help the clown back to his feet, hoping 

    to somehow redeem my offense, but the creature was gone. Solemnly I walked away from the scene of my inadvertent crime and sought other streets away from its witnesses. 

    Along the various back avenues of Mirocaw I wandered, pausing exhaustedly at one point to sit at the counter of 

    a small sandwich shop that was packed with customers. 

    I ordered a cup of coffee to revive my overly alcoholed system. Warming my hands around the cup and sipping 

    slowly from it, I watched the people outside as they passed