Free Mood Indigo by Boris Vian Page B

way, filled with shining golden thoughts.
    The church was not far away. The car whizzed round elegantly in the shape of a heart and pulled up at the foot of the steps.
    At the top of them, between two big pillars covered with carving, Father Phigga, the Unisexton Bedull and the Husher were on parade prior to the ceremony. As a back-cloth, long lengths of white silk hung to the ground, and the twenty Twenty-Four-Sheet Music Boys were dancing a ballet. They were wearing white cassocks, with red shorts and white shoes. The girls, who had been called in to make up the right number and to make things more pleasant, wore little red pleated mini-skirts instead of the shorts, and had red feathers in their hair. Father Phigga was on the drums, the Unisexton Bedull on the fife, and the Husher backed them up with maracas. All three joined in the chorus together, after which Father Phigga did a quick dance, then grabbed a double-bass and with his bow gave a fabulous solo based on variations on the main theme from the Bridal March.
    The three score and thirteen Minstrels were already up in their gallery playing, and the bells were ringing merrily on high.
    Suddenly a brutally discordant and hopelessly lost chord rang out. The conductor, who had taken a step back too near the edge, had just toppled over into space, and the deputy conductor had to take over without a break. At the very moment that the first conductor squashed himself flat on the floor-slabs below, they played another shattering chord to cover the din, although the church still trembled on its foundations.
    Colin and Chloe looked with admiration at Father Phigga, the Unisexton Bedull, the Husher and his Hush-Hushers and Offsidesmen as they stood to attention at the door of the church waiting for the ceremony of the presentation of the pikestaff.
    As a finale, Father Phigga did a juggling turn with chopsticks and Indian clubs, and Adam Browbeadle produced such an agonized caterwauling from his fife that half the narrow-minded old maids who had been waiting on the steps to see the bride forced a straight and narrow path through the crowd to scurry inside and pray. On the last chord the Husher snapped the strings of his double-bass. Then the twenty Twenty-Four-Sheet Music Boys came down the steps, one after the other, with the girls forming up on the right, and the boys on the left, of the door of the car.
    Chloe stepped out. She was completely radiant and ravishing in her white dress. Alyssum and Isis followed her. Nicholas had just arrived and hurried to join the group. Colin took Chloe’s arm, Nicholas took Isis’s, and Chick took Alyssum’s, and they all mounted the steps, followedby the Kissitwell brothers – Coriolanus on the right and Pegasus on the left – while the twenty Twenty-Four-Sheet Music Boys trotted along behind in twos. Father Phigga, the Unisexton Bedull and the Husher, after they had put down their instruments, held hands and danced in a ring while they waited.
    Half-way up the steps, Colin and his friends carried out a complicated manoeuvre in which they all changed places and got themselves in the right order for going into church. Colin was with Alyssum, Nicholas with Chloe on his arm, followed by Chick and Isis and, last of all, the Kissitwell brothers – but this time with Pegasus on the right and Coriolanus on the left. Father Phigga and his stony henchmen stopped going round in circles, went to the head of the procession and then, singing a gay old Gregorian chant, made a dash for the door. As they passed through, the Hush-Hushers banged each of them on the head with a thin crystal balloon filled with consecrated water, and stuck a little stick of lighted incense in their hair. It burned with a yellow flame for the men and a purple one for the remaining sex.
    The little trucks were all lined up inside the door of the church. Colin and Alyssum got into the first one and went straight off. They immediately found they were in a