In Search of Love and Beauty by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Page B

with a broken wall attached, sometimes a series of orbs stretching away into a similitude of infinity. Winding in and out of these props, and to the accompaniment of the pianist perspiring at his upright, Leo’s students performed the motions into which they had been trained. Leo himself stood toone side, dressed in the same robes as the performers except that his were black where theirs were pure, purest white. After each dance, and with the piano beginning to spell out the rhythm of the next, he explained the meaning of each item—the way each represented a separate passion of the microcosm worked up to a pitch where it was ready to take on universal significance and merge into the macrocosm: culminating in the final dance—an ensemble called The Spheres of Eternity—in which the separate groups of dancers formed themselves into one full circle, symbolizing the harmonious absorption of the individual into the universe.
    The applause at the end was hearty. The audience was mostly comprised of friends and relatives of the performers, so that their enthusiastic clapping may have been partly in relief—not only that the performance itself was over but also the weeks of ordeal which had preceded it. At any rate, the spectators, descending with their kisses, congratulations, and flowers into the basement where the dressing rooms were fitted in around the boiler system, went home satisfied; but for the performers there was a celebration arranged by Leo at the Old Vienna—a celebration which usually turned into a last ordeal for at least one of them.
    At first everything went very festively. Several tables had been joined on to Leo’s, so that they extended in a long row from his alcove into the center of the restaurant. The place was packed with other after-theater parties; the waiters ran around, shouting to each other in various European languages; the chandeliers blazed once from the ceiling and twice in the mirrors; huge trays were carried from the kitchen to reload the trolleys of pastries and hors d’oeuvres; everyone was shouting at the top of their voices, both in excitement and in order to be heard.
    Leo’s party was the most festive and the most excited. They gulped cold wine too fast so that their sensations were heightened and some of them were quite drunk. Leo himselfdrank enormous quantities of alcohol, and his face, with a cigar stuck in it, flamed. He was still a young man at that time and a great dandy in his tuxedo with a gardenia in his buttonhole. The students allowed to sit with him at his round table were handpicked. They were watched enviously by other, less favored ones who had to make do with seats at the joined-on tables: enviously but also apprehensively, for everyone knew that one of the chosen had been placed there in order to be made the scapegoat of whatever failure had marked that evening’s performance. The routine was always the same: when everyone’s good mood was at its height, Leo addressed a remark to one particular person at his table. At once everyone fell silent.
    One year it was Louise’s turn to be the scapegoat. This was the year that Regi had become Leo’s favorite. After the first shock, and scenes, and despair, Louise had settled down into resignation. She was still part of the group, she still saw him almost daily, he still kept some of his clothes in her apartment. It had to be enough. Love made her humble, and she persuaded herself that it was. She thought he was pleased with her for her acceptance, and he appeared to be; and she was sure of it when she was chosen to sit with him at the round table for the after-theater supper.
    Leo made jokes. He was in capital humor and teased a girl who had almost tripped during one of the dances when the laces of her ballet shoes had come undone. “How do you expect me to raise you to a higher level of being,” he deplored, “when you haven’t even learned to tie your