of any other of the Russian ballets—less a dream than a vision, so that when it comes to an end we feel that it is ourselves that are losing touch with reality rather than that what appeared as reality is now proving itself an illusion.
The secret of this effect is twofold. Partly it lies in the exquisite purity of convention which the ballet retains throughout, partly in the conviction of aloofness which Nijinsky brings to his rendering of the part of Armide's slave. He never forgets for a moment where and what he is, and though, as we have hinted, Armide is first and foremost a choreographic ballet, Nijinsky has also made of it a splendid occasion for the practice of his faculty for imaginative characterisation.
This, I think, explains the fact that one can return to the Pavillon d Armide
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