An English writer describes the dancing of the Mazurka in
contemporary Russia:
In the salons of St. Petersburg, for instance, the guests
actually dance; they do not merely shamble to and fro in a
crowd, crumpling their clothes and ruffling their tempers, and
call it a set of quadrilles. They have ample space for the
sweeping movements and complicated figures of all the orthodox
ball dances, and are generally gifted with sufficient plastic
grace to carry them out in style. They carefully cultivate
dances calling for a kind of grace which is almost beyond the
reach of art. The mazurka is one of the finest of these, and
it is quite a favorite at balls on the banks of the Neva. It
needs a good deal of room, one or more spurred officers, and
grace, grace and grace. The dash with which the partners rush
forward, the clinking and clattering of spurs as heel clashes
with heel in mid air, punctuating the staccato of the music,
the loud thud of boots striking the ground, followed by their
sibilant slide along the polished floor, then the swift
springs and sudden bounds, the whirling gyrations and dizzy
evolutions, the graceful genuflections and quick embraces, and
all the other intricate and maddening movements to the
accompaniment of one of Glinka's or Tschaikowsky's
masterpieces, awaken and mobilize all the antique heroism,
mediaeval chivalry and wild romance that lie dormant in the
depths of men's being.
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