The Shepherd gazed at the double doors on the east side of the foyer, the doors to the cavernous theater.
He had loved the vastness in there.
Feeling hesitant without understanding why, the Shepherd turned the knob of one of the doors and entered.
Adrianna was there, dressed in pristine white bloomers and camisole, her long thick hair hanging in a long braid to her waist.
As the Butler said, she was taking her evening exercise.
Caught off guard, the Shepherd was embarrassed.
Stripped of her usual glamor, her simple garments were more intimate even than the revealing gown she had donned for dinner the previous night.
In this moment, Adrianna seemed more human, more vulnerable, more easily seen.
Yet Adrianna was clearly at ease. She waved when she saw him, without missing a step in her ritual.
“I beg your pardon,” the Shepherd said, turning to go. “I don’t mean to intrude.”
“Your presence is hardly an intrusion, my darling Shepherd. You can even join me if you like. I prefer to finish before supper.”
With her arms outstretched, Adrianna swooped low as she spoke, bringing her right shoulder down, the length of her arm reaching for the floor before she completed her turn with a rounded kick of her left leg in the air above her head.
Then her arms floated to her sides, as she sidestepped across the floor with long strides and a casual undulation in her hips.
Suddenly, she lunged forward with her right leg crooked at the knee, her left leg long behind her, her back arched and head thrown back as she stretched her arms toward her back leg.
Breathing in deeply and sighing audibly, she held the pose for a moment.
Then she swung her left leg forward and up, knee bent to her chest before lunging to her left side, her arms swinging over her head as she reached for the air beyond her grasp.
The dance was both graceful and peculiar in the silence that echoed through the theater.
“I think I prefer to watch,” the Shepherd replied.
“As you wish, dear Shepherd.”
Adrianna laughed, without missing a beat.
Her voice breathier than usual as she transitioned to the next leg of her choreography, abruptly coming out of the side lunge to jump high, bringing her knees to her chest before her feet came down with a soft thump.
Her grace was astonishing.
The legendary Courtesan became a dervish, moving with the agility and nimbleness of a woman more than half her age.
Within moments, the Shepherd was forgotten.
He could tell Adrianna had retreated into a world where nothing existed beyond motion.
Her lovely face was blank as she twirled, lunged, leaped, and spun around the magnificent space of the theater.
The Shepherd now understood how the legendary Courtesan maintained the youthful contours of her face and figure.
Watching Adrianna move to her internal rhythms was captivating in the quietude of a nearly empty theater.
She seemed to grow younger as the dance went on, years coming off her face that glowed from the bliss of freedom of motion. 4
It took strength and concentration, yet also surrender, to dance as she did.
There was so much beauty in the serenity and ecstasy of her expression, in the incandescence of her sparkling golden eyes, the simplicity of the black and silver braid falling to her waist.
Adrianna the Beautiful was exquisite.
That image seared itself into his mind, and the Shepherd picked up his sketch pad and started drawing furiously.
But he only needed to be reminded of the curve of her cheek, the muscles in her calves, the line of her arms stretched out.
He continued drawing even when she moved with the speed of a wood sprite, nimble enough to avoid getting caught.
The Shepherd didn’t look at the parchment at what he drew, so riveted was he by the dance of silence.
Suddenly, she was finished.
Adrianna became still and closed her eyes, her lower belly billowed as she breathed deeply and slowly.
Then she opened her eyes and took a long drink from a pitcher of water that had been left for her. She offered some to the Shepherd, which he accepted absently with a vague nod, finishing his sketch with a few bold strokes.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” she said, breathing deeply.
“Absolutely,” the Shepherd agreed. “Where did you learn to dance like that?”
“An indirect consequence of one of my favorite lovers of all time,” she said.
“One of the luckiest moments of my life was meeting him. We called him the Chinaman, even though he said he was Burmese. But it was the business of his life to travel all over the Orient and then the far parts of the world.”
Adrianna took another look drink from the pitcher before she continued.
“The Chinaman taught me some lovely forms of exercise he learned during his travels. Yoga and tai chi. Very exacting disciplines. Over the years, I found I enjoy them so much more if I use the postures as a dance.”
