Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/278

230 circles cut out of gold paper drawn together to form two big rings, while at the temples appear clusters of red camellias and wistaria and metal ornaments. The face is whitened and the lips are stained vermilion, and the shaved eyebrows replaced by short, slanting lines of black paint, which lend a touch at once piquant and grotesque. The Geisha of the house is a vastly different person. Her sole mission in life is to amuse and entertain. To this end she dons a gaily-embroidered kimono and decorates her black hair with fans, flowers, and other ornaments. Her prettiest performance is the fan dance, to the light strain of a stringed instrument played by a female musician. Fluttering a fan in her right hand, with her left she liberates a paper butterfly, then, darting hither and thither with marvellous grace and dexterity, she pursues it as it floats towards a flower, skims a petal and alights on the brim of a cup, to escape afresh and describe moth-like circles about the flame of a candle, suddenly disappearing in a quick flash of fire.

In Mohammedan countries dancing is denounced as a sin. Men never indulge in it, either for profit or pastime, while such women as make it their profession are regarded as disreputable members of the community.

Despite the ban placed upon them, Persian dancers are wonderfully skilful, and capable of performing prodigies in their particular line. They dance to the accompaniment of an air chanted by a woman or a boy. The rhythm is slow, the tune languorous, and the action pantomimic, being made up of certain poses and movements which, seconded by an eloquent play of feature, strive to tell a story