We go down sometimes to see the dancing. Since I have been here, I perfectly understand why you never find time to go to balls, if dancing in your country is anything like it is here. When we were children of twelve, before we were veiled, we were invited to dances given in Constantinople. I have danced with young attachés at the British Embassy, yet, child though I was, I saw nothing clever in their performance.
All the people at this dance are grown up, not one is under twenty—some are old gentlemen of fifty—yet they romp like children all through the evening till deep into the night, using up their energy and killing time, as if their life depended on the rapidity with which they hopped round the room without sitting down or feeling ill.
The waltz is to my mind senseless enough, but the lancers? “The ring of roses” the little English girls play is more dignified.
It seems to me that women must forfeit a little of the respect that men owe to them when they have romped with them at lancers.
To-night, I have found out, dancing here is after all an excuse for flirting. In a very short while couples who were quite unacquainted with one another become very intimate. “Oh! I could not wish for a better death than to die waltzing,” I heard one young woman say to her partner. His wishes were the same. Surely the air of Switzerland does not engender ambition!
[Illustration: A TURKISH LADY DRESSED AS A GREEK DANCER
Turkish women spend much of their time dressing up.]
One gentleman came and asked me if I could dance. I said, “Yes, I can _dance_,” laying particular emphasis on the word _dance_. But I do not think he understood.
“No,” I replied, “I _dance_ by myself.” He stared at me as if I were mad—probably he took me for a professional dancer.
When you come to stay with us at Nice, after we have had enough of this pure air to justify our leaving Switzerland and these commonplace and unsympathetic people, and we are in our own villa again and free to do as we will, then we will teach you Turkish dances, and you will no longer be surprised at my criticisms.
Dancing with us is a fine art. In the Imperial Harem more attention is paid to the teaching of dancing than to any other learning. When the Sultan is worn out with cares of state and the thousand and one other worries for which his autocratic rule is responsible, his dancing girls are called into his presence, and there with veils and graceful movements they soothe his tired nerves till he almost forgets the atrocities which have been committed in his name.