Alone in the gathering gloom, Narcissus continues in rapt adoration of his own fair image. As presently appears, he is rooted, literally, to the spot. For as he stands there gazing he slowly sinks downward into the mossy soil, and in his place there rises a tall narcissus flower, whose pale petals glimmer luminously in the dusky twilight. From nooks and crannies the sylvan sprites creep silently forth, to pry with timid, curious eyes upon this strange apparition. Upon this ghostly scene, and the forlorn figure of Echo, passing sadly across the leafy bridge, the curtain gently descends. One regrets to end this account of what is in many ways a charming ballet upon an adverse note. But a protest _must_ be entered against the Brobdingnagian flower, so evidently a thing of paint and paste-board, which is thrust up from the trap-door cavity by which Narcissus makes his escape. The whole business is so monstrously crude and childish that one can scarcely credit its occurrence. In conception the conclusion of the ballet is admirable, but if trap-doors and cardboard flowers (popping up from the soil in full bloom and fresh with the property master’s paint) are the only means by which such an ending can be accomplished, it seems amazing that such ordinarily nice taste as the Russians display should tolerate these enormities. There is a sense of proportion lacking here, as at the opening of the ballet when a clumsy heaviness of hand, seeking to make the most of the elfin creatures of the wood, effectually reduces them to nothing. The poignant final passage between Echo and Narcissus, eloquently expressed by Karsavina and Nijinsky, is spoilt by this grotesque termination. Happily these blunders are as rare as they are inexplicable. Only perhaps in “Le Dieu Bleu,” with its similar resort to the artifice of the trap-door, its matter-of-fact demons, and impossible flight of aerial steps, is there a parallel to these which mar the beauties of “Narcisse.” Too close an attention to the cult of the body is perhaps the cause of this material, ultra-realistic touch.