Gustav Meyrink

“ The Persian prince acknowledged the movements of the Pierrot with a smile, pointing with his finger at the sedan chair.
The curiosity of the audience reached its climax when it saw that the Pierrot had pressed his face against the glass and was staring at something in the window of the sedan chair. Then suddenly, like one gone mad, he beat his face with his hands, sank on his knees and tore his hair. Then he sprang furiously up and raced around the bottle at such speed that the audience saw only a fluttering cloth in his wake. ”

“ In the foreground posed the marionettes. Here were grouped a humpbacked dwarf with chalky face, a gray, grinning devil, and a sallow, rouged actress with carmine lips. The three seemed possessed of some satanic secret that had paralyzed their movements. The semblance of death brooded over the entire motionless group.
The Pierrot in the bottle now began to move restlessly. He doffed his white felt hat, bowed and occasionally greeted the Persian prince, who with crossed legs sat on the cap of the bottle. His antics amused the audience. ”

“ A rough figure representing a huge knot dashed by them in wild flight to escape a Hellenic warrior in shimmering armor.
"If you were the Gordian knot, Mynherr, and were pursued by Alexander the Great, wouldn't you be frightened?" teased the inverted Bat, tapping the Dutchman coquettishly on the end of the nose with her fan.
"The sharp wit of the pretty Marquise Bat betrays her," smiled a lanky Satan with tail and cloven foot. "What a pity that only as a Bat are you to be seen with your feet in the air." ”