y. The most vivid of them
all is Mlle. Lucienne Breval as "Carmen." The sinuous figure is wrapped
in a shawl apparently of a thousand colors; actually, a strong
combination of yellow, green, and red. The skirt which the singer
gathers in one hand and lifts sufficiently to show the small foot in its
red slipper has a dark vermilion ground on which is a pattern of large
flowers of paler vermilion, boldly outlined with blue.

Over it droops the dark fringe of the shawl. A crimson flower is in the
dark hair, and the footlights cast an artificial amber glow on the face.
This tawny harmony is seen against a background of slightly acid green;
at the other side of the canvas is a little table with two men seated at
it. They look "made up," in the theatrical sense, and the table looks
rather light and rickety; there is one solid natural stage property, the
yellow jug on the table with its dull blue figure. The whole life and
reality of the picture are in the Carmen smiling and muffled in the
curious shawl, as if she were about to move in a fiery dance in which
her brilliant wrappings would take a part as animated and vital as her
own. No one but a Spaniard could invest a garment with such
expressiveness.

[Illustration: Courtesy of the Hispanic Society of America.

THE OLD BOULEVARDIER

_From a painting by Zuloaga_]

"Paulette as Danseuse" is another stage figure. Here again the costume
speaks with extraordinary eloquence. The colors are green and pink, and
play delicately within a narrow range of varied tones. Under the short
green jacket the low-cut bodice shows a finely modeled throat and a
chest that seems almost to rise and fall with the breath, so palpitating
with life is the fleshlike surface. The poise of the figure suggests
that the dance has that moment ended, and the eyes and mouth are
slightly arched. The undulating line of the draperies, now tightly
drawn about the figure, and again billowing into ampler curves, suggests
the rhythm of the dance.

In another canvas we see Paulette once more, this time in walking
costume, standing with her hands on her hips in a daintily awkward pose.
Her lips, in the first picture upturned at the corners, mouselike, have
widened in a frank smile, her eyes have lost their formal archness and
look with detached interest upon the passing show, she still is supple,
clear cut, with a flexible silhouette, but her gown would find it
impossible to dance, and, as before, she and her go