ction?"

"Nothing, unless it be a relative perfection."

"But here it is absolute. Dupres always does the same thing, and everyday
we fancy we see it for the first time. Such is the power of the good and
beautiful, of the true and sublime, which speak to the soul. His dance is
true harmony, the real dance, of which you have no idea in Italy."

At the end of the second act, Dupres appeared again, still with a mask,
and danced to a different tune, but in my opinion doing exactly the same
as before. He advanced to the very footlights, and stopped one instant in
a graceful attitude. Patu wanted to force my admiration, and I gave way.
Suddenly everyone round me exclaimed,--

"Look! look! he is developing himself!"

And in reality he was like an elastic body which, in developing itself,
would get larger. I made Patu very happy by telling him that Dupres was
truly very graceful in all his movements. Immediately after him we had a
female dancer, who jumped about like a fury, cutting to right and left,
but heavily, yet she was applauded 'con furore'.

"This is," said Patu, "the famous Camargo. I congratulate you, my friend,
upon having arrived in Paris in time to see her, for she has accomplished
her twelfth lustre."

I confessed that she was a wonderful dancer.

"She is the first artist," continued my friend, "who has dared to spring
and jump on a French stage. None ventured upon doing it before her, and,
what is more extraordinary, she does not wear any drawers."

"I beg your pardon, but I saw...."

"What? Nothing but her skin which, to speak the truth, is not made of
lilies and roses."

"The Camargo," I said, with an air of repentance, "does not please me. I
like Dupres much better."

An elderly admirer of Camargo, seated on my left, told me that in her
youth she could perform the 'saut de basque' and even the 'gargouillade',
and that nobody had ever seen her thighs, although she always danced
without drawers.

"But if you never saw her thighs, how do you know that she does not wear
silk tights?"

"Oh! that is one of those things which can easily be ascertained. I see
you are a foreigner, sir."

"You are right."

But I was delighted at the French opera, with the rapidity of the scenic
changes which are done like lightning, at the signal of a whistle--a
thing entirely unknown in Italy. I likewise admired the start given to
the orchestra by the baton of the leader, but he disgusted me with the
movements of