otto-chan was taken to Hibiya Hall to see the ballet Swan Lake. Daddy was playing the violin solo and a very fine troupe was performing. It was the first time she had ever been to a ballet. The queen of the swans wore a tiny sparkling crown on her head and leaped through the air effortlessly, like a real swan. Or so it seemed to Totto-chan. The prince fell in love with the Swan queen and spurned all others. Finally, the two of them danced together so tenderly. The music, too, made a great impression on Totto-chan, and after she got home she couldn't stop thinking about it. Next day, when she woke up, she went straight down to the kitchen where Mother was, without even brushing her hair, and announced, "I don't want to be a spy any more, or a street musician, or a ticket seller. I'm going to be a ballerina and dance in Swan Lake!"

"Oh," said Mother. She didn't seem surprised.

It was the first rime Totto-chan had ever seen a ballet, but she had heard a great deal from the head-master about Isadora Duncan, an American lady who danced beautifully. Like Mr. Kobayashi, Isadora Duncan had been influenced by Dalcroze. If the headmaster She admired so much liked Isadora Duncan, that was enough for Totto-chan, and although she had never seen her dance, she felt as if she knew her. So to be a dancer didn't seem anything out of the ordinary to Totto-chan.

It so happened that a friend of Mr. Kobayashi's who came and taught eurythmics at Tomoe had a dance studio nearby. Mother arranged for Totto-chan to take lessons at his studio after school. Mother never told Totto-chan that she must do this or must do that but when Totto-chan wanted to do something, she would agree, and, without asking all sorts of questions, she would go ahead and make the arrangements.

Totto-chan began taking lessons at the studio, longing for the day when she would be able to dance Swan Lake. But the teacher had his own special method. Besides the eurythmics they did at Tomoe, he would have the pupils amble about to piano or phonograph music, repeating to themselves some such phrase as "Shine upon the mountain!" from the prayer "Cleanse my soul; Oh, shine upon the mountain!" chanted by pilgrims as they climb Mount Fuji. Suddenly the teacher would exclaim, "Pose!" and the pupils would have to assume some pose they devised themselves and stand still. The teacher would pose, too, with some emotive cry like "Aach!" and assume a "looking up to heaven" pose or sometimes that of "a person in agony, crouching down and holding his head with both hands.

The image Totto-chan cherished in her mind, however, was that of a swan wearing a sparkling crown and a frilly white costume. It was not "Shine upon the mountain!" or "Aach!"

One day Totto-chan plucked up courage and went over to the teacher. Although he was a man, he had curly hair and bangs. Totto-chan stretched her arms out and fluttered them like the wings of a swan.

"Aren't we ever going to do anything like this!" she asked.

The teacher was a handsome man with large round eyes and an aquiline nose.

"We don't do that kind of dancing here," he said.

After that Totto-chan stopped going to his studio. True, she liked leaping about in bare feet, not wearing ballet shoes, and striking poses she thought up herself. But, after all, she did so want to wear one of those tiny, glittering crowns!

"Swan Lake is nice," said the teacher, "but I wish I could get you to like just dancing according to you fancy.

It wasn't until years later that Totto-chan found out that his name was Baku Ishii and that he not only introduced free ballet to Japan but also gave the name Jiyugaoka ("freedom hill”) to the area. In addition to all that--he was fifty at the time--this man tried to teach Totto-chan the joy of dancing freely.