Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/132

NIJINSKY their life in a divine paralysis. And now at last the sacrifice is accomplished. In dreadful travesty of death the girl languishes to the ground, and the bear-skinned tribesmen gather round to carry her away to burial, shoulder high.

Such is the ballet of Le Sacre du Printemps, if ballet it can be called. And however much you may dislike it, you cannot deny its interest as an attempt to track the art of dancing to its source in the rituals of savagery. Whatever its æsthetic value, this aspect of the thing at least is of importance. For its aim is altogether serious, and I have it from Nijinsky himself that the whole spectacle has been designed with the most reverent reliance on existing records of Muscovite life in the fourth century before Christ.

But if archæological accuracy were the 94