Although I heaved a sigh of relief when the “Colonel” and his ragtag-bobtail band clambered aboard the ship bound for Europe, there were still serious problems to be considered. The uppermost questions that troubled me were merely two parts of the same query: “Why should I go on with this ballet business?” I asked myself. “Haven’t I done enough?” Against any affirmative answer I could give myself, were arranged two facts: one, the magnetic “pull” ballet exerted upon me; two, the existence of a contract with the Metropolitan Opera House, which had to be fulfilled. So it was that, in the autumn of 1947, that I gave a short season of ballet there. It was not a season of great ballets, but of great artists. The programmes centered about Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, André Eglevsky. From this emerged a dance-group company, compact, flexible, the Markova-Dolin Company, which toured the country from coast to coast with a considerable measure of success. This was not, of course, ballet in the grand manner. It was chamber ballet; a dozen dancers, a small, well-chosen group of artists, together with a small orchestra and musical director. In addition to the two stars, the company included Oleg Tupine, Bettina Rosay, Rozsika Sabo, Natalia Condon, Kirsten Valbor, Wallace Siebert, Royes Fernandez, George Reich, with Robert Zeller, young American conductor, protegé of Serge Koussevitsky and Pierre Monteux, as Musical Director. The repertoire included three new works: _Fantasia_, a ballet to a Schubert-Liszt score, with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska; _Henry VIII_, a ballet by Rosella Hightower, to music of Rossini, arranged by Robert Zeller, and costumes by the San Francisco designer, Russell Hartley; _Lady of the Camellias_, another balletic version of the Dumas tale, choreographed by Anton Dolin to portions of Verdi’s _La Traviata_, arranged and orchestrated by Zeller; the Jerome Robbins _Pas de Trois_, to the _Damnation of Faust_ excerpts, in costumes by the American John Pratt; and two classical works, viz., _Famous Dances from Tchaikowsky’s The Nutcracker_, staged jointly by Markova and Dolin, with costumes by Alvin Colt; and _Suite de Danse_, a romantic group, including some of _Les Sylphides_, in the Fokine choreography; a Johann Strauss _Polka_, staged by Vincenzo Celli; _Pas Espagnole_, to music by Ravina, by Ana Ricarda; _Vestris Solo_, to music by Rossini, choreographed by Celli; and Dolin’s delicious _Pas de Quatre_.