The old marble has become an object of palpitating interest to the maiden.
All this time the firefly quadrille continues as rhythmic accompaniment.
The scene changes — it is still dusk. There is a narrow high arch in a wall — through it one can see a fall of feathery foliage by artificial light — peculiarly beautiful green— There linger some Gypsy-like crass glass colored light ladies — beckoning to the youth— He is still gazing at his blue ribbon— The light ladies stroll up and down, pacing — their feet gripping the ground stealthily— This has still the together and apart rhythm of the insect quadrille — exactly as I have observed it outside a shady hotel in Paris. The youth remains oblivious— It grows darker for the light through the archway is extinguished and all that can be observed for a brief space is the rhythm of the pacing, stealthy, half-aimless, half purposeful legs— Then they disappear.
The youth looks up from his ribbon which does not entirely satisfy him — and out of the darkness where the light ladies have been a large, lashy, luminous eye winks at him and is extinguished— The youth is decided— He stuffs the blue ribbon, which symbolizes his conscience, into his pocket and throws sentiment to the winds. He begins to dance in a defiant, distracted, disjointed, whirling motion — symbolizing the ebullition of youth — and in every direction towards which he whirls, a gigantic wild oat springs up right in front of him, until he dances in a perfect forest of them that absolutely impedes his movements— The scene fades— This is the dance of the wild oats.
Then follow the wild oats episodes.
The following scene is clear and gay — and the youth is dancing up to a quaint glass house — with two doorways side by side. From one doorway appears towards him a ravishing lady in a (blue or pink) paper crinoline. The sun is shining and the youth is about to clasp the lady when she pops back into the glass house and with a sudden shower of rain, her husband with a (pink or blue) umbrella emerges suddenly from the other door— The youth darts back— The rain stops— The husband disappears — the ravishing lady is again almost in his arms — when the same incidents repeat themselves. The youth, for his episode with a married lady, has come upon the old-fashioned barometer couple who predict the weather. Here we have again the to-and-fro movement in the dance rhythm. After the alternation of rain and shine has taken place a few brief times, the inevitable happens. So much sun and rain have induced a rainbow. The barometer house fades away and the youth is attracted to the spirit of the rainbow. A beautiful creature, all coloured like the rainbow. He is transported onto the rainbow — and dances (the two figures are suspended from wires) tip toe— A dance of wooing on the rainbow (which can consist of an arc of colored lights). When he is about to take her in his arms the (enormous) blue ribbon wafts itself in between him and the spirit of the rainbow — and arrests the dance. The youth falls off the rainbow onto the wet sand of the sea shore. But he has been dyed in the colours of the rainbow — and the mermaids mock at him— They sprinkle him with water to wash the rainbow stain away — and now he is all dripping wet— This effect he can attain by having long strings of transparent sequins hidden in pockets of his clothes which he can let out unnoticeably as he prepares to dance the short staccato dance of shaking himself dry — the dripping will sparkle as he dances and he will manage, by unclasping one clasp that holds them all together, to let them fall to the ground. He is now dry, and is free to turn his attention to the wooing of a beautiful mermaid with long green glass hair, who sits on a rock to comb it and he sits beside her, with her tail curled round his legs.
They enjoy a surprising spectacle — in the surf of the waves the mermaids are dancing — they are the genus of mermaids that have double tails — and on these tails they dance the trick dances that human beings dance with their legs— These dancers must also be suspended on wires in order to be able to move the tails with their legs inside them, the tails being much longer than their legs— This dance will be enchanting. The mermaids can stand on the tip of the one tail and twirl the other tail round it in pirouette. They will dance the Russian dance, their arms folded with one tail curved under them and the other tail flung violently out. The composition of the row of mermaids dancing in different attitudes on their double tails in their amusing curves will be most original.
The wooing of the beautiful mermaid is getting on finely. She coquettishly takes out her comb to comb her hair (the comb is enormous) when the youth, who is just about to embrace her, beholds the symbolical blue ribbon twisting in and out of the prongs of the comb. He leaps from the rock — all the mermaids fade away — and a huge blue wave with a crest of dripping foam hovers above him and remains stationary as a background to the next dance. In the shadow of this wave — some collapsed jelly-fish are lying on the wet sand — they gradually pick themselves up and dance, under the hovering curve of the blue wave, the dance of the jelly-fish with their crystalline domes and long floating colored streamers depending from them — they are all enticing the youth when the wave subsides — the jelly-fish fade away — and on a calm summer ocean appears the cortege of Venus in a shell drawn by horses like the white china figures I collect. The youth leaps on to the shell of Venus to which she beckons him and she points to the horizon — out on the horizon the youth sees the blue ribbon drifting — and the scene fades.
The next scene is moonlight— The youth has been lying asleep on the moss — and over him bends a dryad incorporated with a tree — the form of her ballet skirt repeats the form of the tree’s foliage. She emerges from the tree and as they are about to embrace the blue ribbon floats in between them and the youth dances away — in his dance he is arrested on the point of tripping over something at his feet — it is the fairy ring — under a clump of white thorn bushes, through which the wires can be manipulated by a sitting figure, a group of exquisite marionettes dance beside a black glass pool surrounded by very luminous arum lilies — while the youth and the dryad dance a slow dance of admiration— The fairy queen is riding a fairy tiger reined with a daisy chain — when she sees the youth she descends from the tiger and dances to the youth and at last flies into his arms — and gets all wrapped up in the blue ribbon— The scene fades.
The youth is confronted by a towering column of narrow glass steps — and on its summit is a maiden bound — and round her feet curves the first curve of a dragon, with flames — tiny flames — darting from its tongue— The rest of the serpent-like dragon curves all down round the pinnacle of stairs— On either side of the maiden the sun and moon shed rays accompanied by stars — as in the old prints. The sun and moon with human faces. The scene is terrifically cold and pure in line and whiteness — even the flames of the dragon’s mouth are blue like low burning gas jets. The youth dances a magnificent dance of courageous attack — always in the rhythm of to-and-fro — he darts towards the dragon — the dragon darts his head at him — the dragon draws back its head— The youth renews the attack — he has an enormous yellow gilt shield, sword, helmet and winged sandals like Mercury. At last he strikes the dragon— The pinnacle of stairs falls apart — giving an amusing cubistic pattern of white oblongs in the air at different angles to each other between the falling-apart blocks. The maiden descends, floatingly, to earth while the dragon falls apart to reveal nothing but the maiden’s mother holding up her lorgnette— The maiden flies into the youth’s arms — and after embraces he takes her blue ribbon out of his pocket— The scene fades.