body, after cowering and trembling a while in the corner of the room,
approached the flower again to the accompaniment of music played by a
tom-tom, a cymbal, and a flute. Something which was not pleasure drew her
to it. The first time she had traced her way to the source of the perfume
by sniffing fragrance in the air. Her mouth had been open, the nostrils
of her fine little nose had quivered. Hans Füllenberg was correct in his
observation that her eyes, as she held her head back, had been closed.
The second time, she seemed to be drawn against her will by a gruesome
something, which alternately aroused fear, horror, and curiosity. She
held her eyes wide open, and now and then covered them with both hands,
as if in dread of seeing something hideous.

But when she came quite close to the flower, all fear suddenly seemed
to drop away from her. She hopped for joy and laughed--she had been
needlessly alarmed. How could a fat, immobile spider squatting on a
flower be dangerous to a creature with wings? This part of her dance was
so graceful, so full of droll, bubbling, childlike merriment, that the
audience laughed tears of delight.

Now, however, a new phase of the dance began, introduced in a thoughtful
strain. Having danced herself to satiety and intoxicated herself with the
flower's perfume, Mara, with movements of agreeable fatigue, made as if
to lay herself to rest, but delayed here and there to brush from her body
something like the threads of a spider's web, at first serenely and
pensively, then with growing disquiet, which communicated itself to the
onlookers. The child paused, reflected an instant, and apparently was
about to laugh at herself because of the fears that had arisen in her
soul; but the next minute she paled with fright, and made a dexterous
leap, as if to free herself from a trap. Her blond hair tossed back in
Mænadic waves turned into a flaming stream. Her whole appearance evoked