I pondered the matter again.
After all I had gone through with this man, I asked myself, why should I continue to listen to Koudriavtzeff? If ever there was a time when I should have said, firmly, unequivocally “to hell with ballet,” it was at this moment. But I continued to listen.
With one ear I was listening to the insistent refrain: “To hell with ballet.” With the other, I was harking to my responsibilities to the local managers, to my lease with the Metropolitan Opera House.
Koudriavtzeff proceeded with his rapid-fire chatter. From it one sentence came sharp and dear:
“Will you please be so kind, Mr. Hurok? Will you, please, see de Basil?”
It could have been that I was not thinking as clearly and objectively as I should have been at that moment.
I agreed.
The next evening, de Basil, Koudriavtzeff, and I met.
Mrs. Hurok sounded the warning.
“I don’t object to your seeing him,” she said, “but you’re not going in with him again?”