with the feeling of disgust which might have been
aroused. This was acting, this was characterization, so completely
merged in rhythm that the result became a perfect whole, and not a
combination of several intentions, as so often results from the work of
an actor-dancer.

The heart-breaking Petrouchka, the roguish Harlequin, the Chopiniac of
_Les Sylphides_,--all were offered to our view; and _Narcisse_, in which
Nijinsky not only did some very beautiful dancing, but posed (as the
Greek youth admired himself in the mirror of the pool) with such utter
and arresting grace that even here he awakened a definite thrill. In _La
Princesse Enchantee_ he merely danced, but how he danced! Do you who saw
him still remember those flickering fingers and toes? "He winketh with
his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers," is
written in the Book of Proverbs, and the writer might have had in mind
Nijinsky in _La Princesse Enchantee_. All these parts were
differentiated, all completely realized, in the threefold intricacy of
this baffling art, which perhaps is not an art at all until it is so
realized, when its plastic, rhythmic, and histrionic elements become an
entity.

After a summer in Spain and Switzerland, without Nijinsky, the Russian
Ballet returned to America for a second season, opening at the Manhattan
Opera House October 16, 1916. It is always a delight to hear and see
performances in this theatre, and it was found that the brilliance of
the Ballet was much enhanced by its new frame. The season, however,
opened with a disappointment. It had been announced that Nijinsky would
dance on the first night his choregraphic version of Richard Strauss's
tone-poem, _Till Eulenspiegel_. It is not the first time that a press
agent has made a false prophecy. While rehearsing the new work, Nijinsky
twisted his ankle, and during the first week of the engagement he did
not appear at all. This was doubly unfortunate, because the company was
weaker than it had been the previous season, lacking both Miassine and
Tchernicheva. The only novelty (for America) produced during the first
week was an arrangement of the divertissement from Rimsky-Korsakow's
opera, _Sadko_, which had already been given a few times in Paris and
London by the Ballet, never with conspicuous success. The second week of
the season, Nijinsky returned to appear in three roles, the Faun, Till
Eulenspiegel, and the Slave in _Scheherazade_. Of his perform