Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/63

Rh young fisherman who exposes himself to my clutches, and, to make the pleasure last longer, I fascinate him by dancing round him for a time. . . . But, alas! to do it properly I want a sarafane. What a pity! You must please excuse this dress, which has neither character nor local colour. . . . Oh ! and I have slippers on. It is quite impossible to dance the roussalka with slippers on. . . and heels on them too."

She picked up her dress, and, daintily shaking a pretty little foot at the risk of showing her leg, she sent the slipper flying to the end of the drawing-room. The other followed the first, and she stood upon the parquetry floor in her silken stockings.

" We are quite ready," she said to the governess. And the dance began.

The roussalka revolves and revolves round her partner; he stretches out his arms to seize her, but she slips underneath them and escapes. It is very graceful, and the music has movement and originality. The figure ends when the partner, believing that he has seized the roussalka, tries to give her a kiss, and she makes a bound, strikes him on the shoulder, and he falls dead at her feet. . . . But the Count improvised