gyptian feasts to remind the
company of their liability to die. But when he woke up and began to
dance I saw at once that I was wrong.

I now know all about the interpretation of _Joseph's_ dance; but I defy
anyone to say at sight and without a showman's assistance what precisely
he was after. In the Third Figure (according to my guide-book) "there is
in his leaps a feeling of heaviness, as if he were bound to earth, and
he stumbles once or twice as one who has missed his goal;" but how was I
to guess that this signified that his "searching after God" was still
ineffectual? or that when in the Fourth Figure he "leaps with light
feet" this meant that "Joseph has found God"? I don't blame the boy for
not knowing the rule that forbids one art to trespass on the domain of
another; but there is no excuse for Herr Strauss, who must have been
well aware that, for the conveyance of any but the most obvious
emotions, mute dancing can never be a satisfactory substitute for
articulate poetry.

However, _Potiphar's_ guests seemed better instructed than I was, for
they threw off their apathy and took quite an intelligent interest in
_Joseph's_ _pas seul_. Indeed, one young man (the episode escaped me at
the dress rehearsal, but I have it in the guide-book)--one young man,
"sobbing, buries his head in his hands, upsetting thereby a dish of
fruit." As for _Potiphar_, it failed to stir the sombre depths of his
abysmal boredom, but his wife, whose ennui had hitherto been of the most
profound, began to sit up and take notice, and at the end of the dance
she sent for _Joseph_ and supplemented his rather exiguous costume with
a gross necklace of jewels, letting her hand linger awhile on his bare
neck. Already, it will be seen, she was intrigued with the "unknown
divine." _Joseph_, on the contrary, received her attentions without
_empressement_.

In the next scene--after a rather woolly and unintelligible
interlude--we see _Joseph_ retiring to his couch in an alcove behind the
place where the banqueting-table had been. You will judge how urgent was
the lady's keenness to probe the mysteries of his divine nature when I
tell you that she could not wait till the morning to pursue her
enquiries, but must needs visit him in his chamber at dead of night, and
wearing the one garment of the hour. At first, still half dreaming, he
mistakes her for an angel (he had already seen one in his sleep), but
subsequently, growing suspicious, he repels her