with a dignified
disdain. For I must tell you that, whatever the guide-book may allege
about the loftiness of her designs, the music gave her away. It
reverted, in fact, to the motive of those passages which had already
accompanied and illustrated the nuptial dance, the dance (as Herr
Tiessen calls it) of "burning Love-longing."

At this juncture, _Potiphar_ and his minions break upon the scene. His
wife, after denouncing _Joseph_, is distracted between passion of hatred
and passion of love, and there is some play (reminding one of
_L'Apres-midi d'un Faune_) with the purple cloak which _Joseph_ had
discarded. Presently she eludes her dilemma by fainting.

Meanwhile it has been the work of a moment to order up a brazier, a pair
of pincers, a poker, a headsman and an axe. The instruments of torture
waste no time in getting red-hot; and we anticipate the worst. _Joseph_,
however, who has ignored these preparations and maintained an attitude
of superbly indifferent aloofness, suddenly becomes luminous under great
pressure of limelight; and most of the cast, including a ballet of
female dervishes, are abashed to the ground.

Now appears, on the open-work entresol at the back of the stage, an
archangel. The guide-book is in error where it says that he glides
downwards on a shaft of light radiating from a star. As a matter of fact
he walks down the main staircase to the ground floor. Approaching
_Joseph_ he takes him by the hand and "leads him heavenwards" by the
same flight of steps; and we are to understand that, in the opinion of
Herr Strauss, the boy's subsequent career, as recorded in the Hebraic
Scriptures, may be treated as negligible.

I should like, in excuse of my own flippancy, to assume the same
detachment, and to regard this ballet-theme as having practically no
relation whatever to Biblical history, but being just one of many themes
out of Oriental lore, mostly secular, that lend themselves to the drama
of disappointed passion. My only serious protest is against the
hypocrisy which pretends, with regard to _Potiphar's Wife_, to see a
spiritual significance in what is mere vulgar animalism.

I ought, by the way, to have said that, in a spasm of chagrin, she
chokes herself with the pearl necklace which lent the only touch of
superfluity to her night attire, and was carried out--but not up the
main staircase. Thus ends this sordid tragedy that so well illustrates
that quality in Herr Strauss to which my guide