st human heart in the twilight behind the scenes. Of all the
witches and semi-witches of that eternal _Walpurgis night_, whose boards
represent the world, the ladies of the ballet have at all times and in
all places been regarded at least like saints, although Hacklaender
repeatedly told in vain in his earlier novels, to convince us that true
virtue appears in tights and short petticoats and is only to be found in
ballet girls. I fear that the popular voice is right as a general rule,
but is equally true that here and there one finds a pearl in the dust,
and even in the dirt, and the short story that I am about to relate,
will best illustrate my assertion.

Whenever a new, youthful dancer appeared at the Vienna Opera House, the
_habitues_ began to go after her, and did not rest, until the fresh
young rose had been plucked by some hand or other, though often it was
old and trembling. For how could those young and pretty, sometimes even
beautiful girls who, with every right to life, love and pleasure, were
poor and had to subsist on a very small salary, resist the seduction of
the smell of flowers and of the flash of diamonds? And if one resisted
it, it was love, some real, strong passion, that gave her the strength
for this, generally, however, only to go after luxury all the more
shamelessly and selfishly, when her lover forsook her.

At the beginning of the winter season of 185--the pleasing news was
spread among the _habitues_, that a girl of dazzling beauty was going to
appear very shortly in the ballet at the Court Theater. When the evening
came, nobody had yet seen that much discussed phenomenon, but report
spread her name from mouth to mouth; it was Satanella. The moment when
the troop of elastic figures in fluttering petticoats jumped onto the
stage, every opera-glass in the boxes and stalls was directed on the
stage, and at the same instant the new dancer was discovered, although
she timidly kept in the background.

She was one of those girls who are surrounded by the bright halo of
virginity, but who at the same time present a splendid type of
womanhood; she had the voluptuous form of Rubens' second wife, whom they
called, not untruly, the risen Green Helen, and her head with its
delicate nose, its small full mouth, and its dark inquiring eyes,
reminded people of the celebrated picture of the Flemish Venus in the
_Belvedere_ in Vienna.

She took the old guard of the Vienna Court Theater by storm, and the
ve