Blasting bands, chanting choirs, performing animals, hordes of feverish revelers shouting, throwing things, laughing as though the whole world was the stage for a vast slapstick comedy-the carnival procession streamed past the hotel in which Lars Talibrand could not hear them. After all, tonight and for the week to come, this palnet Earth would be the stage for a comedy, the farce of carnival in which all could become pantaloon, harlequin, columbine, by turns.