“The school contains a great room for dancing, with a floor sloped at the same angle as that of the stage at the Marinsky Theatre. Here one may see a class of merry boys instructed in their art. A master, usually one of the best dancers in the theatre, shows them the steps and movements to be learnt, and half-a-dozen do their best to copy him. After ten minutes they go and rest, and a second batch comes forward. The boys seem to enjoy the work, and even when they are supposed to be resting some of them will continue to practise and give each other friendly hints. In another and similar room is the girls’ class, where the method is the same. Then there is a room with many toilet-tables on which grease-paints are set out and with mirrors and electric lights arranged exactly as at the theatre. Here the pupils assemble for lessons in make-up. A boy has to learn to transform himself into a Chinese or an old man or a beautiful young Greek, and he has to pass examinations at different points of his school career in this art. I remember once meeting a young man in the waiting-room of a Polish dentist” (he goes on to relate). “He told me he had toothache and a nervous break-down, brought on he believed by the strain of a difficult examination. I asked what were the subjects of the examination. ‘French,’ he said, ‘because we must be cultured, dancing, the history of dancing, and painting my face.’ I had the curiosity to ask where this unusual curriculum was followed. ‘At the Imperial School of Ballet,’ he said, mentioned his name with the air of one who felt that he ought to have been recognised, and added: ‘Thank heaven I’ve passed, and now I am a _premier danseur_. It is a delightful life, and when I am too old to dance the State will give me a pension.’” [Illustration: THE RUSSIAN BALLET AN UNDRESS REHEARSAL] The pupil at the Imperial Ballet School receives in fact a sound secondary education. Four hours a day are devoted to dancing during the eight years he is at school. While still at school the children occasionally appear on the stage in special _ballets d’enfants_. They also take part in “crowds” in operas where children are needed, as in the first act of Tchaikovsky’s _Dame de Pique_. At seventeen they begin their career as members of the _corps de ballet_, from which the most proficient rise upwards, through the various grades of _coryphée_, _second sujet_, _premier sujet_, _première danseuse_ or _ballerina_, and _ballerina assoluta_. The dancer retires, after eighteen years’ service, at thirty-five--only artists of exceptional merit are permitted to continue after that age--and receives a pension of from one hundred and twenty pounds to two hundred and sixty pounds a year.