"In order that you may thoroughly enter into the spirit of our little
_fête_, my dear fellow, I must, in your behalf, remove some of the
obscurity in which the bayaderes are shrouded.
"In Europe the most ridiculous ideas prevail about these priestesses
of the dance, obtained chiefly from the tales of conscientious, but
easily imposed-upon travellers. As a matter of fact, they have
scarcely set foot in India before they make known to the inhabitants
their wishes to see the famous dancing girls who have for so long
excited their curiosity. A so-called cicerone, whose sole occupation
really consists in providing a supply of the spurious article,
hastens to introduce to the notice of the unsophisticated European a
few women passably pretty, and tolerably well-made, who give
themselves out to be bayaderes with the same facility as with us a
man announces himself as a landed proprietor or a contributor to the
newspapers.
"To the sound of a kind of tambourine and brazen cymbals, these
ladies step forward, raise their arms in the air, indulge without any
preface in a variety of those contortions of trunk and shoulders
which are the fundamental principle of all Oriental dances, and cast
on their patron glances which, they do their best to make appear
ardent. He, on the contrary, quite insensible to all these
manoeuvres, gets rid of his visitors as quickly as possible, and on
his return to Europe, exclaims, 'Don't believe in the bayadere—she is
a regular sell.'
"The real fact is that he never had a glimpse of the genuine article,
and it is quite a mistake to suppose that it is to be found in
_cafés_ or hotels, or to imagine that a bayadere is to be had for the
asking. Just as poets are born, and not made, so you must absolutely
be born a bayadere or resign all pretensions to the title.
"The origin of this race dates from the most remote antiquity.
Amongst the countless Hindoo divinities to be found in our curiosity
shops, you may have remarked a four-armed figure perched on an
elephant. He is one of the eight gods of Brahminism; he is called
Indra and, according to the legend, the bayaderes, or celestial
dancing girls, inhabited his kingdom. One of these was enamoured of a
mortal, and gave birth to a daughter, who, on account of her
semi-terrestrial origin, could not be brought up in heaven, and was in
consequence confided to the care of the priests called Brahmins. They
placed her in a pagoda, where, by way of proving the truth of the
saying that every well-bred dog has a good nose, she displayed from
her earliest years the greatest aptitude and liking for dancing. She,
in her turn, had seven daughters who, gifted in like manner as their
mother and their grandmother, became dancers of renown.
"In the present day they are connected with the worship of the gods,
and might be called the vestals of their religion, if its rules,
whilst forbidding them to marry, did not place them entirely at the
mercy and in the hands of the Brahmins. In a word, they are a species
of religious harem of which the priests of Brahma are the Sultans.
The bayadere, therefore, still lives, but exclusively in the temple
or pagoda where, on the days of religious ceremonial, she executes
the prescribed dances before the idols. Occasionally, too, she is to
be found in the palace of some Rajah who has purchased her on her
attaining maturity for a fabulous price from the Brahmins, for she is
their property, and a very handsome revenue they manage to secure out
of her and her fellows.
"This race of women would have long ago become extinct, if several
castes in India, the weavers amongst others, did not look upon it as
a pious duty to devote their daughters to the service of the temples.
To be accepted they must not be more than five years old, must be
possessed of sufficiently good looks to give promise of future
beauty, and their family must renounce all idea of ever seeing them
again. If they fulfil the required conditions they are handed over to
the care of some aged matron, herself a graduated priestess, to whom
is entrusted the task of instructing them in their new duties, and of
initiating them into all the mysteries of a dance, which, whilst it
partakes of the nature of all Oriental dances, yet actually resembles
no one of them, and is, moreover, invested with decidedly mystic
characteristics.
"Such is the information, a little hazy, perhaps, but quite correct
as far as it goes, which I am enabled to give you on the subject of
the genuine bayadere. If you want a more detailed account, refer to
that very instructive work, Jacolliot's "Voyage au pays des
Bayadères."
"The first idea of Delange, de Morin and myself, was to hold our
_fête_ in the open air, and invite our dancers to come on the poop.
The night was lovely—so luminous was the sky, and so bright was the
star shine, that it gave one the idea of a prolonged twilight. Not a
breath of air was there to raise a ripple on the water. Our engine
alone disturbed the calm that reigned around, and its throbs were the
only sound that broke the perfect stillness that had fallen on all.
Never was there a night more propitious for a spectacle in the open
sea. But the Captain, who, in order to make us forget his
shortcomings, had placed himself entirely at our disposition and was
doing his very best to help us, pointed out that the _fête_ we were
preparing would certainly lose much of its originality, and would be
much less natural if it took place on the poop; because the Hindoos
would object to being exposed to the gaze of all the common sailors,
and would in consequence not give us any real idea of their dancing
powers, He advised us to select as our theatre the apology for a
cabin, already occupied by his female passengers, and he undertook to
enlarge it by removing some of the largest packages, and rolling up
the mats which now served for curtains. His opinion and advice
prevailed.
"About eleven o'clock in the evening, as we were creeping along the
eastern shore of the Red Sea, the Captain, who had run in as near
land as possible, stopped the engines, and cast anchor right in the
centre of a perfect little bay, formed by some of the banks of coral
so numerous in these parts. This manoeuvre had scarcely been
completed, when the trusty Joseph-Mohammed, in a black coat and a
white tie, as correct "on duty" as he had promised to be, announced
to us that all was ready. We descended from the poop, and, going a
little way along the deck, reached the main hatchway, down which we
went with the aid of a ladder.
"The little cabin had been made about seven yards long, its width
remaining the same as before. We took our places at one end, just
underneath an opening which had been made by removing the hatches,
and we thus had the clear sky above our heads. Four lanterns of
coloured glass, ornamented with arabesques, were suspended from the
sides of the ship, two on either hand, but the moon, after dallying
with the sea, peeped in through the open ports, and spread around us
all the light she thought we needed.
"We had no sooner seated ourselves on a kind of low couch, made of
cushions with mats spread over them, than an Arab brought us coffee,
served in small cups wreathed with silver filagree-work, and lighted
for us chibouks filled with latakia. We looked about us, tolerably
surprised, I assure you. All these surroundings, absolutely new to
us, excited our curiosity, for though _blasés_ as Parisians, as
travellers we were without any experience.
"Very soon the draperies which answered the purpose of a drop-curtain
were stirred, and a woman appeared, bowed low before us, crept
cringingly to our feet, prostrated herself there, sprang up again
with a bound, and took refuge in a corner of the cabin, whence we saw
her take two large circular plates made of copper, which she began to
beat gently, one against the other, with measured, but plaintive and
seductive rhythm. In her, I thought, I recognized the one whom I had
seen asleep with her knees up and her elbows resting on them. She
might have been twenty years of age, but jaded and prematurely worn,
as are all Eastern women, she looked older.
"Placed on the retired list as a dancer, she had been converted into
a musician for the sake of keeping her employed. Her hair was
interwoven with small gold coins strung on a thread; she wore a
jacket and skirt of richly embroidered blue satin, and a cashmere
bodice served to display her still charming figure. Her large sleepy
eyes, whose lustre was but slightly dimmed, gazed vacantly into
space.
"Little by little, the cymbals were beaten in quicker time; in lieu
of just touching them gently, she struck them against each other, and
the rhythm losing its plaintive character, became more animated and
more marked. At last the two parts of the instrument, after being
held suddenly apart, were brought together with a clash, the curtains
were lifted all together, and three girls bounded into the midst of
us.
"Their hair, the black-brown hair I described to you, was
dishevelled, their shoulders bare, the lower part of their figures
was draped in a tightly-fitting scarlet satin garb, and the rest of
their bodies was covered with silk-gauze, fringed with gold, through
which could be seen the burnished tints of their velvety skin.
"At first, without moving their feet from the Smyrna carpet which had
been placed for them on the ground, they wound in and out, their arms
extended before them, their heads turned backwards, their almond-shaped
eyes half closed, their mouths slightly opened, their nostrils
quivering, and their bosoms heaving with a slow, but even and
continuous motion. They uttered not a sound, not even a sigh escaped
them; their eyes alone grew gradually brighter, and their breasts
heaved more quickly.
"They were, all three of them, wonderfully lovely, and though the
eldest of them could not have reached fifteen, their figures were
fully developed. But, as I have already described them to you, I will
only add that the animation which the motion of the dance lent them,
served to enhance their beauty.
"After a moment or two, they became more and more animated, their
arms were waved convulsively, their hands clutched at the air, and
their whole bodies took the undulating movement which up to this time
had seemed to be confined to the hips.
"Each of them, without paying the slightest attention to her
neighbour, enacted some scene of impassioned comedy or tragic drama.
One, like an inspired virgin, raised her eyes to heaven, and appeared
to be sending on high a fervent prayer. Another pourtrayed the victim
of unrequited love, and the third seemed plunged in a sort of
ecstacy.
"It was a ballet, but a ballet of a new order, picturesque and highly
coloured, conceived by a librettist born under the equator.
"To make a long story short, this strange, unheard of dance, of which
I have given you but an imperfect idea, ended only when the
performers sank to the ground, panting and exhausted.
"The stars glittered still over our heads, the moon, more brilliant
than ever, enfolded us in her bright, clear rays, and a gentle breeze
wafted to us across the water the countless odours of the
neighbouring shore."