Bakst is more than an a solitary creator. He is an inspirer whose influence radiates forth over a huge periphery. How numerous are the aspects [Illustration: SKETCH] of modern life that bear Bakst’s indelible seal, which is a label of greatness and which confers an air of nobility in which one is never mistaken! These are the things of which I am thinking as I turn over with you, my readers, the pages of this book. And as we have finished, we must begin again--this time, however, in silent meditation, which is even more gratifying. [Illustration: LXI PORTRAIT OF THE POET ANDREI BELY. CRAYON AND PENCIL] [Illustration: LXII A PORTRAIT] [Illustration: LXIII PORTRAIT OF THE BOY Z. RED CHALK] [Illustration: LXIV THE “WOMEN OF GOOD HUMOUR” BALLET. DOROTHEA] EPILOGUE [Illustration: PROJECT FOR EMBROIDERY] BAKST AND RUSSIA We have followed Bakst through each of the fields with which he was familiar, whatever their nature. Each road in this labyrinth of styles brought us back to the native land of the artist. Throughout, the exotic or “Eurasiatic”--to use a word coined by a group of Russian dreamers in exile--dominated. For the common herd Bakst is over and above all the creator of an oriental fairyland. Even his very name, monosyllabic, quickly pronounced, and cutting like the blade of a Turkish simitar, seems to call up a fleeting but intense vision of Asia. [Illustration] Bakst was bound forever to disconcert the lovers of convenient formulas. You think you have caught up with his jerky and lightning-like course, when, lo! he has already escaped, to the delight of one of the “four winds of the spirit”. There remains in your hand the sixth skin of the serpent which it divests itself of--only to clothe itself again in the seventh. Recently, in the spring of 1922, we witnessed a new <g>avatar</g> of the artist. Ten years previously he had left his fatherland for a new fatherland that was more hospitable--for France. Now, under a splendid impulse of piety, of tender homesickness, of filial love he returned of his own accord to his Mother--Russia, bruised, trampled [Illustration: LXV “A PEASANT WOMAN” (SKETCH BY POTEMKINE). GOUACHE] [Illustration: LXVI “A PEASANT WOMAN” (SKETCH BY POTEMKINE). GOUACHE] [Illustration: LXVII COSTUME FOR “LE CHANTRE ET LA DÉVOTE”] [Illustration: LXVIII COSTUME OF PEASANT WOMAN FOR POTEMKINE’S “VILLAGE”] [Illustration: DRAWING OF COVER FOR THE BOOK “RUSSIAN EX-LIBRIS”] upon, dragged into the mud and blood by infamous villains. When all the world deserted her, he watched by her bedside. Chance had it that, at the very moment when Alexander Benois’ masterpiece, “Petroushka” was produced at the Opera, a mimic drama by Bakst was played on the scanty stage of the Femina theater entitled “Lâcheté”. Between these two surprising plots lies nothing less than a half=century of Russian history--the fall of a throne and of a world.