s, and none of them moved at our entry. But the musicians, who
were seated on the ground, rose and salaamed, and instantly began to
play. There were five instruments--a miniature harmonium (terrible
innovation), two viols, of flat, unresonant tone, a pair of cymbals, and
a small drum. The ear, at first, detected little but discordant chaos,
but by degrees a form became apparent--short phrases, of strong rhythm,
in a different scale from ours, repeated again and again, and strung on
a thread of loose improvisation. Every now and again the musicians burst
into song. Their voices were harsh and nasal, but their art was
complicated and subtle. Clearly, this was not barbarous music, it was
only strange, and its interest increased, as the ear became accustomed
to it. Suddenly, as though they could resist no longer, the dancers, who
had not moved, leapt from the platform and began their dance. It was
symbolical; Krishna was its centre, and the rest were wooing him. Desire
and its frustration and fulfilment were the theme. Yet it was not
sensual, or not merely so. The Hindus interpret in a religious spirit
this legendary sport of Krishna with the milkmaids. It symbolises the
soul's wooing of God. And so these boys interpreted it. Their passion,
though it included the flesh, was not of the flesh. The mood was
rapturous, but not abandoned; ecstatic, but not orgiastic. There were
moments of a hushed suspense when hardly a muscle moved; only the arms
undulated and the feet and hands vibrated. Then a break into swift
whirling, on the toes or on the knees, into leaping and stamping, swift
flight and pursuit. A pause again; a slow march; a rush with twinkling
feet; and always, on those young faces, even in the moment of most
excitement, a look of solemn rapture, as though they were carried out of
themselves into the divine. I have seen dancing more accomplished, more
elaborate, more astonishing than this. But never any that seemed to me
to fulfil so well the finest purposes of the art. The Russian ballet, in
the retrospect, seems trivial by comparison. It was secular; but this
was religious. For the first time I seemed to catch a glimpse of what
the tragic dance of the Greeks might have been like. The rhythms were
not unlike those of Greek choruses, the motions corresponded strictly to
the rhythms, and all was attuned to a high religious mood. In such
dancing the flesh becomes spirit, the body a transparent emblem of the
soul.

After