Before
a Martian youth of either sex may attend an important social
function where there is dancing, he must have become proficient
in at least three dances--The Dance of Barsoom, his national
dance, and the dance of his city. In these three dances the
dancers furnish their own music, which never varies; nor do the
steps or figures vary, having been handed down from time
immemorial. All Barsoomian dances are stately and beautiful, but
The Dance of Barsoom is a wondrous epic of motion and
harmony--there is no grotesque posturing, no vulgar or suggestive
movements. It has been described as the interpretation of the
highest ideals of a world that aspired to grace and beauty and
chastity in woman, and strength and dignity and loyalty in man.
Today, John Carter, Warlord of Mars, with Dejah Thoris, his mate,
led in the dancing, and if there was another couple that vied
with them in possession of the silent admiration of the guests it
was the resplendent Jed of Gathol and his beautiful partner. In
the ever-changing figures of the dance the man found himself now
with the girl's hand in his and again with an arm about the lithe
body that the jeweled harness but inadequately covered, and the
girl, though she had danced a thousand dances in the past,
realized for the first time the personal contact of a man's arm
against her naked flesh.
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