Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/48

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NIJINSKY

impression of being very slight in build. His body is slim as a boy's. His arms are delicate. His wrists and ankles almost dainty. While watching him dance it may not seem strange that a being so agile should be able to lift and hold, a hair's-breadth from the ground, another being like unto himself but frailer even than he—one of those Sylphides, perhaps, that sway like river-reeds in the breeze or hover like thistledown. Yet, thinking it over, you have to realise that after all it was a grown woman he held there, and that only the apparent ease with which he held her cheated you into the belief that she was light as air. Try for yourself a similar feat, and you will know how much of physical strength is needed to perform it even clumsily. And Nijinsky is nothing if not graceful. And graceful strength is strength twice over.