Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/90

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NIJINSKY

forget that they are human, and to lose themselves horribly in the last and frenzied abandonment of desire. Round him and around they swirl and swarm like drunken bees. Thank God! you say, when suddenly the circle dissipates, disintegrates before your eyes, and it is the hour of judgment.

Seen for the first time, Scheherazade is one of the most startling of the ballets. The effect of the decoration, the costumes, the music, is intensely moving, while the dancing is only another instance of that wonderful flexibility of style which renders the Russian ballet so perfect an instrument for the expression of almost every phase of feeling. But on a second visit, or a third, this fine effect seems hardly maintained. Individual factors in the production, like the dancing of Nijinsky and the music, keep of course

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