nce that then aroused admiration only in the artist world,
but later became the sensation of all Berlin. He described the affair.

"The pick of the Berlin artists were standing around the room and on the
stairs in informal groups, leaving the centre of the floor clear. Even
Menzel and Begas were there. A special exhibition was to open soon, and
the walls were hung with a collection of Boecklin pictures. The name of
the dance was 'Mara, or the Spider's Victim.'

"I tell you, Doctor von Kammacher," the young man went on, "if you
didn't see that dance, you missed something. In the first place, little
Ingigerd's costume was very scanty, and then her performance was really
wonderful. There are no two opinions about it. A huge artificial flower
was set in the middle of the room, and the little thing ran up and smelt
of it. She felt all about the flower with closed eyes, vibrating as if
with the gauzy wings of a bee. Suddenly she opened her eyes and turned to
a rigid statue of stone. On the flower was squatting a huge spider! She
darted like an arrow to the farthest corner of the room. Even in the
first part of the dance she had seemed to float without weight in the
air; but the way sheer horror blew her across that room made her seem
like nothing but a vision."

Frederick von Kammacher had seen her dance the dreadful dance, not only
at the matinee in the Kuenstlerhaus, but eighteen times again. While
Fuellenberg was trying to express his impression with "great,"
"tremendous," "glorious," and similarly strong epithets, Frederick saw
the whole dance over again with his mind's eye. He saw how the childlike
body, after cowering and trembling a while in the corner of the room,
approached the flower again to the accompaniment of music played by a
tom-tom, a cymbal, and a flute. Something which was not pleasure drew her
to it. The first time she had traced her way to the source of the perfume
by sniffing fragrance in the air. Her mouth had been open, the nostrils
of her fine little nose had quivered. Hans Fuellenberg was correct in his
observation that her eyes, as she held her head back, had been closed.
The second time, she seemed to be drawn against her will by a gruesome
something, which alternately aroused fear, horror, and curiosity. She
held her eyes wide open, and now and then covered them with both hands,
as if in dread of seeing something hideous.

But when she came quite close to the flower, all fear suddenly seemed
to