The Friendship Fete, to celebrate our not having had any scraps with any foreign country for some little time, was simply immense. There were descriptive tableaux and groups, and the one undertaken by your Blanche--swords being turned into ploughshares and the figure of Peace standing in the middle, with Bellona crouching at her feet--was said to be an easy winner. I was Peace, of course, in chiffon draperies, with my hair down. I hadn't the faintest notion what sort of thing a ploughshare was, but I'd clever people to help me, and so it was all right. But oh, my best one! the difficulty I had in getting a Bellona! They all wanted to be Peace, and some of them were so absolutely horrid about it that I couldn't help telling them they were only showing how _fit_ they were to be Bellona! (I will tell _you_ in confidence that I believe one of them was responsible for some of my swords and ploughshares falling down with an immensely odious crash just as the opening ceremony was going on.) Norty was given the group of all nations, called, "All Men are Brothers," and he said on the whole it was rather a rotten job; there was a lot of friction, and at one time he was afraid things might get almost to _diplomatic_ lengths; however, it all went smoothly at last. Still he told me _a l'oreille_ that he was glad it was well over, as two or three Friendship Fetes would be enough to shake the peace of Europe to its foundations! But nothing matters much while one can go and see the wonderful, _wonderful_ Kamtchatkans in "_Noe s'embarque sur l'Arche_"--a feast of beauty--a riot of colour--a mass of inner meanings. Who am I, dearest, that I should try to word-paint it? Being an opera-ballet, there are two Noahs, a singing one and a dancing one. While that glorious Golliookin, the singing Noah, is giving the marvellous Flood Music in a gallery over the stage, our dear wonderful Ternitenky, the dancing Noah, is going into the Ark in a series of the most delicious _pas seuls_. Then his dance of Astonishment and Alarm as he sees the waters rising--and afterwards his dance of Joy and Thankfulness at finding himself quite dry! The _Pas de Six_ of Noah's Sons and their Wives! And the _ensemble_ dancing of the Animals! My dearest, you positively must and shall leave your solitudes and come and see the Kamtchatkans in Scriptural opera-ballet! Only second to _Noe_ is _La Femme de Lot_, with dear Sarkavina, in clouds of white, doing a sensational whirling dance as she turns into the Pillar, while that amazing soprano, Scriemalona, sings the mysterious Salt Music. Bishops quite _swarm_ at these performances. They say they consider it their _duty_ to go, and that they never _really_ understood the true character of NOAH till they saw Ternitenky's beautiful flying leap into the Ark, or quite grasped the personality of LOT'S Wife before seeing Sarkavina's Pillar-of-Salt dance.