Excerpt from The Ballet Dancer and on Guard In order to facilitate this darling project, Carmela Minino had signed an engagement to dance at Castel lamare, in August and September, in the dreary barn called Stabia Hall, with its ceiling open to the sky, and under the direction of Civillo Patalano, an impresario who paid little, and that little irregularly, and who often paid nothing at all. Carmela had accepted the engagement, in spite of her doubts of Patalano, because she did not wish to trench upon the sum set apart for the wreath, and also because she wished to increase it, if it were possible; and she had danced in the wooden theatre, in the open air, perspiring in the hot August evenings until her silk tights were glued to her skin, and she caught one cold after another in the draughts which swept over the stage. In vain did she wrap herself in her black woollen shawl when she left it. And all this pain and trouble for nothing! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.