ing of the second
everything threatened to come to a standstill. I must tell you that my
father hit upon the novel idea of introducing a kind of dummy, or lay
figure, on which this idiotic Nathalie lavishes all her caresses. The
young fellow, who is in love with Nathalie, contrives to take the
dummy's place; consequently, in order to preserve some semblance of
truth, and not to make Nathalie appear more idiotic than she is already,
there ought to be a kind of likeness between the dummy and the lover. I
know not whether the interpreter had been at fault, or whether in the
hurry-scurry I had forgotten all about the dummy, but a few minutes
before the rise of the curtain I discovered that there was no dummy.
'You must do the dummy,' I said to Pierre, my servant, 'and I'll pretend
to carry you on.' Pierre nodded a silent assent, and immediately began
to don the costume, seeing which I had the curtain rung up, and went on
to the stage. I was not very comfortable, though, for I heard a violent
altercation going on behind the scenes, the cause of which I failed to
guess. I kept dancing and dancing, getting near to the wings every now
and then, to ask whether Pierre was ready. He seemed to me inordinately
long in changing his dress, but the delay was owing to something far
more serious than his careful preparation for the part. Pierre had a
pair of magnificent whiskers, and the young fellow who enacted the lover
had not a hair on his face. Pierre was ready to go on, when the manager
noticed the difference. 'Stop!' he shouted; 'that won't do. You must
have your whiskers taken off.' Pierre indignantly refused. The manager
endeavoured to persuade him to make the sacrifice, but in vain, until at
last he had him held down on a chair by two stalwart Scotchmen while
the barber did his work.

"All this had taken time, but the public did not grow impatient. They
would have been very difficult to please indeed had they behaved
otherwise, for I never danced to any audience as I did to them. One of
the few pleasant recollections in my life is that evening at Perth; and,
curiously enough, Pierre, who is still with me, refers to it with great
enthusiasm, notwithstanding the cavalier treatment inflicted upon him.
It was his first and last appearance on any stage."

Here is another story Taglioni told me on a subsequent occasion. I have
often wondered since whether Macaulay would not have been pleased with
it even more than I was.

"The St.