THE Premier Danseur of the Imperial Russian Ballet, Vaslav Nijinsky, had a pair of feet, I’m assured, that you’d have had to see to believe. For the base of his toes and his heels were equidistant from his ankles. Nothing with feet like that had ever been seen outside of Australia.
When Sergei Diaghilev, that great impresario, first saw Nijinsky’s feet he revealed no emotion. “Upjump for me,” was all he said.
Nijinsky went straight up five feet off the ground, completed an entrechat-six, and descended slowly.
“I see you’re out of condition,” the impresario observed.
The following afternoon, during a performance of Les Sylphides, Nijinsky accomplished an entrechat-huit. The applause was deafening. He awaited the impresario’s congratulations with confidence.
“Have you tried coming down on one toe?” was all Diaghilev asked.
One week later, presenting Le Pavilion d’Armide, with Karsavina and Baldina, he achieved an entrechat-douze. Then, instead of walking off the stage, he leaped toward the wings, floated upward and disappeared. Nobody saw him land. Nobody even heard him land.
The house went as wild as though he’d performed a superhuman feat. Which, obviously, he had.
The applause went on so long, without the dancer reappearing, that Diaghilev went to look for him. He found Nijinsky at last, one hand pressing his heart and the other grasping a stage brace. He had only breath enough to ask Diaghilev—
“Now?”
“Why you come down so soon?” Diaghilev complained.
Nijinsky paled.
“Master,” he asked coldly, “what is it you require of me?”
“Etonne-moi!” Diaghilev replied. “Astonish me!”
Upon which Nijinsky hit him across the face with a nine-pound mackerel he’d been holding behind his back.
“I knew he was going to say that,” the premier danseur filled the press in later— “he used it on Cocteau last week. This time I was ready.”
Diaghilev, thoughtfully picking mackerel bones out of his teeth, felt a dawning realization.
“I am going to transform the ballet from a chic but moribund art form into a superbly effective agency for the promotion of avant-garde values,” he decided. “I will begin by convincing the fashionable élite—whom I shall seduce into financing my opulent productions—and end by winning over the general public! For although the average mujik refuses to spend a kopek to see a premier danseur do an entrechat,” he convinced himself, “he will pay several roubles eagerly to see a great impresario get slapped in the teeth with a mackerel.”
He immediately began building a new routine. Commissioning Picasso, Bonnard, Gris, Derain, di Chirico, Fokine, Nijinska, Matisse, Utrillo, Rouault, Miró and Braque as set designers; Massine and Balanchine as choreographers; Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Poulenc, Milhaud, Prokoviev, Stravinsky and Buffy St. Marie to write the musical score, they opened at last in Odessa. The Archduke Ferdinand of Austria attended.
Diaghilev, wearing a putty nose, an orange string tie down to his yellow shoetops, baggy pants tied with a rope and a battered stovepipe hat, had all the best lines. After Nijinsky had completed an entrechat-six, Diaghilev got to say: “Try going a little higher.” And after Nijinsky had gone a little higher he got to say, “Why you come down so soon?” And, after Nijinsky asked, “Master, what do you require of me?” he got to say ‘‘Etonne-moi!”
Upon which Nijinsky got to hit him with a mackerel with unnecessary force.
The Archduke fell out of his box and was assisted back.
Fistfights broke out in the audience; dancers were unable to hear the orchestra above the uproar. The Archduke fell out of the box again. An usher helped him back.
Exercising great presence of mind, Diaghilev brought Nijinsky onto stage center and began harmonizing on If I Can’t Sell It I’ll Keep Sittin’ On It I Just Won’t Give It Away.
The house quieted slowly. When it became deathly still the Archduke fell out of the box again. This time nobody helped him back.
It was a succès de scandale. Diaghilev and Nijinsky were on their way to continental triumphs.
Their greatest successes, understandably, were in the seaports.
Yet with every triumph Nijinsky grew more irascible.
“Leave room when you pick teet’,” he reproved Diaghilev.
The impresario refrained from reminding the dancer that it was mackerel bones he was picking out of his teeth. All he did was to suggest that perhaps, thereafter, they might use a foam-rubber fish.
Nijinsky became infuriated at the mere suggestion.
“You! You! You!” he cursed Diaghilev, “You are a Portuguese oyster!’’
“I’m sorry I even brought it up,” Diaghilev apologized. But Nijinsky was not to be pacified.
“I take orders only from the Gods!”—he let Diaghilev in on something he’d known for some time but hadn’t wanted to let the press in on.
“Before I would use an artificial fish,” he made it final, “I would abandon my art!”
“Have it your own way,” Diaghilev gave in—“But let me remind you that, next week in Barcelona, it’ll be your turn to say Etonne-moi!”
The act broke up in Barcelona.
Which simply goes to show you how much integrity in art depends upon who is swinging the mackerel.
And causes me to wonder whether, were the Archduke found to be alive and well today in Argentina—Wouldn’t that make World War I a mistake?