All the people at this dance are grown up, not one is under twenty—some are old gentlemen of fifty—yet they romp like children all through the evening till deep into the night, using up their energy and killing time, as if their life depended on the rapidity with which they hopped round the room without sitting down or feeling ill.
The waltz is to my mind senseless enough, but the lancers? “The ring of roses” the little English girls play is more dignified.
It seems to me that women must forfeit a little of the respect that men owe to them when they have romped with them at lancers.
To-night, I have found out, dancing here is after all an excuse for flirting. In a very short while couples who were quite unacquainted with one another become very intimate. “Oh! I could not wish for a better death than to die waltzing,” I heard one young woman say to her partner. His wishes were the same. Surely the air of Switzerland does not engender ambition!
A Turkish Dancer
A Turkish Lady dressed as a Greek Dancer
Turkish women spend much of their time dressing up.